[HO455]

Next step was three parts. First was to swap bezels on the tach dash set I got from board member jaybatta. The one got from him was from a later year. At the swap meet I scored a 67 guage set for twenty dollars from a supposed 6800 mile motor home that was in a flood in 70/71 and then parked in a tractor shed until last year. The old boy I got the gauge's from said he was able to save the 402 and the sheet metal but the rest was junk. He had been trying to buy the truck for more than twenty years. He brought the cab from Pendleton to sell. When I was pulling the guages out his son came up and said he sold the cab. I ended up buying the guages from the new owner. The insides of that cluster were really nice so I used the speedometer, fuel, temp, and the ampmeter with the tach, oil and air pressure guages I got from jaybatta. The bezel shows almost no wear and the little cushions that keep the plexiglass from rattling were still nice and soft. Not rock hard and brittle.
Part two was pull the old guage set out along with the glove box.... (Cue the Bob Barker voice) to install a new dash pad. Picked it up from the Truck Parts booth along with a new cigarette lighter. The old one came right out as I had removed during the paint part of the project. I started on one end inserting the bolts until all of them were in. Then I started all the nuts finger tight before I went on to the screws. I found it harder than expected to get the holes for the screws to line up. It took quite a bit of force to push the pad down far enough. Once all the screws were started I tightened the nuts and then the screws. There is some waviness on the top of the pad but maybe after some time in the sun it may flatten out. I didn't tighten any of the fasteners very tight, so the pad will be able expand and contract with temperature changes. After reinstalling the glove box part three starts.
I installed the new guages. I ran some wires to power and to pick up the tach signal for the tach. I was able to splice into the tach wire I previously had run for the fuel pump controller. Upon start up the tach worked fine. I was expecting a problem that would require some kind of electronic isolation, but it was a nonissue. I did have a bit of a ground issue that was quickly solved by retightening the screws on the circuit board. At this point everything works except the fuel guage. It is stuck at empty so could be bad (which would be a shame as it looks so good) or maybe I screwed something up when I was working on the bumper. Oh well that's another day. I still need to plumb the line from the air system to the guage. But I have some imagineering to do on that, not to mention finding an adapter to hook to the guage.
Oh I guess there was a part four. I put the new cigarette lighter in.