Custom Gauge Pods and Plastic Restoration, Part 1

By David Belau

dartslantsix

I’ve talked a lot about eventually turbocharging the Slant Six in my 1966 Dodge Dart. There are a lot of steps I need to take in order to make that happen. One of them is installing the necessary gauges. There’s scant acreage on a ’66 Dart’s dash, so I had to find a place to put them. I’ve always liked the windshield pillar gauge pods, but no one makes them for a Dart. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to make my own. Follow along as I modify the windshield pillar trim and restore it to better than new.

The first thing I did was order a gauge pod set for a vehicle with a similar windshield rake. I chose an early 90′s Dodge truck since their windshields are pretty upright. I wanted to make sure the gauges would be at a good angle when mounted. As you can see, the pods are made to attach to trim that is convex, whereas my trim is concave. I sanded and carved and ground on them until they fit tighter.

Here they are after all that work:

I ground them down so much that it may have been wiser to just use single generic pods rather than a double like I bought.

After I was satisfied with the fit and location, I cut the back out of the trim. I left a small strip to leave some rigidity while I glued the pods down. After they were bonded, I cut this out.

You’ll notice that I also roughed up the area where I was going to glue down the pods. I used an SEM product called “Bumper Repair.” I bought this before I did research on bonding plastic parts, and now that I look back, I don’t think I would have used this product. Not that it’s a bad product, I just found a better method.

Here’s a picture of the backside after slathering it on:

At this point, the project sat on the bench for a while as I tried to decide what to use for filler to smooth out the transitions. I read horror stories where standard Bondo was used on plastic and cracked off soon after. What could I use? Some guys said you can make a slurry if you take plastic shavings and mix them with acetone. That didn’t sound like it would smooth out well, but it did turn on a bulb in my head. While I was cutting my trim piece, the sweet smell of melting ABS (that I remember from my plumbing days) came to my nose. My trim is made from ABS, and so are the pods. I could use ABS plumbing glue to make repairs on my project! After some research I found that ABS glue is actually just ABS plastic melted in a solvent, usually MEK. When the solvent evaporates, it leaves solid plastic. When applied to an existing ABS surface, the solvent melts into the existing piece, forming a very tight bond. The “Bumper Repair” product is an epoxy. It can only mechanically bond to the ABS, so it’s not as strong. I wish I would have used the ABS glue instead, but I was too far down the road already.

With my new-found knowledge, I decided to make some repairs to my trim. The mounting holes on these pieces always break, so I decided to reinforce them. To match the curve of the trim, I used the sections I cut out behind the gauge pods. I glued these down over the original holes with ABS glue. After they dried, I drilled them out:

On the upper part of the trim, there was a piece that was completely missing. This is a section that mates with a metal piece, and in my experience, is usually cracked or missing like mine. How will I fix it? You’ll have to wait for part two to find out! Thanks for reading.