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AMC Rambler Custom Dash and Gauge Cluster

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How To Build a Trick Dashboard
Custom Dash Gauge Cluster Factory Gauges

How To Build a Trick Dashboard

Go one step beyond the basic restoration and add eye-popping elements when you build a trick dashboard

By Douglas R. Glad
Photography by Douglas R. Glad

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'The back of your head is someone else's problem. It's not like you have to stare at it for hours on end or use it for critical gear changes. So you can leave its destiny up to the femme with the buzzin' clippers and call it good. Not so with the dashboard on the street machine. You're gonna stare that thing down on long road trips and need to consult it during gear changes and illicit top-speed testing. It better be right. It better be good.

The dashboard rebuild has come a long way since the standard plastic-polish rubbing and orange-nail-polish-on-the-speed-needle treatment. Steve Strope from Pure Vision Design in Simi Valley, California, has been rethinking the standard, and more recently, Redline Gauge Works in Santa Clarita, California, has come up with a way to swap out analog and geardriven cable systems for sleek new VDO innards. Each has developed a way to completely change the look and feel of the gauge face to any vibe you want; all you have to do is envision it. To that end, we have assembled some cool ideas from these two luminaries and even had Strope work some mojo in the CC/Rambler project dash.




Supplies
Devcon Plastic Welder
Dupli-Color Silver Metallic
Dupli-Color Instant Chrome
Dupli-Color High Performance Wheel Coating (clear)
Dupli-Color Adhesion Promoter
Krylon Semi-Flat Black
Meguiar's Mirror Glaze Clear Plastic Cleaner
Meguiar's Mirror Glaze Clear Plastic Polish
SEM Self Etching Primer
Auto Meter 2 1/16 fuel/water/oil/volt gauges
Auto Meter 3 3/8 in-dash speedometer


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