Mike's 1972 Monte Carlo Restoration

On this page I will show you some of the little things, details that are part of the restoration. I mentioned in one of the earlier pages that I would show you the steering wheel resto and dash pad. This will be shown on this page.

It was time to pull the dash out of the car and start to rebuild and restore the dash and gauges. It came apart fairly easy but now I wonder if I will be able to get it back in the car without scratches, scuffs and rattles.

Getting the gauges out of the dash was a job in itself and when I finally separated the two the gauge housing came apart in pieces. I guess that 35 years of heat and cold made the plastic brittle and it just broke in pieces. I was, however, able to find a brand new one on EBAY and then reassembled the gauges and housing, buffed the lens and now am ready to put it back into the dash. Before I put it back in the dash I am going to wait until after the car is painted and before I put the glass back in.

I know you have seen the car primed but there is a long story behind the primer. I used a primer on bare metal that was not a self etching primer. After talking with professional body shop guys the convinced me I needed a self etching primer so I sanded off the first coat, applied a primer wash, base coat and then several coats of polyurethane and self etching polyurethane primer. After primer came the guide coat and blocking the car to the final finish prior to paint. After blocking there are still some small spots that needed to be addressed and then spot primed and blocked again.

This now brings us back to the point in the restoration where we started. I have the car sanded, (once again), and starting to mask for the third attempt at painting.

Now I'll show you some of the smaller details I mentioned earlier.

Remember back on the 'As it was' page you saw the steering wheel and how badly it was cracked, split with big gaps in the plastic. Years of heat and cold and UV exposure really did a number on the old wheel.

I found a steering wheel restoration kit from Eastwood Company. It turned out to be a two part epoxy based material that you apply and spread like body filler, sand, prime and paint. I thought it turned out really, really good, I was very happy. I did this about a year and a half ago but now it is starting to crack, especially on the back of the spokes and there are witness lines where the voids were on the grip of the wheel. I guess it shrank up and cracked again. I'll try again and see what happens.

Here is the progression of the dash pad story. A definite lucky break for me.

I was talking to an acquaintance of mine one day, of course we were talking cars, and I asked if he was working on anything these days and he told me he was just about done with a 1972 El Camino. I then asked him about the interior condition and he said it was very good when he obtained the car. I told him he was lucky because the interior, seats, headliner and door panels on my Monte Carlo were pretty well shot. I then asked him about his dash pad. He then proceeded to tell me that the dash pad in his El Camino was in very good shape in the original car and the dash pad in the parts car he bought was also in very good condition. I told him he was lucky because, like the rest of my interior, the dash pad was shot and there was no way it could be saved. He then asked me if I wanted the dash pad from the parts car. I told him absolutely, how much do you want for it? The next answer was the best 'NOTHING!'

As you can see the dash pad from the parts car was green and the interior of my Monte Carlo is blue. NO PROBLEM, with some number matching interior paint it is now blue. I could not be happier with the results and the cost was just right!

This last entry was completed on December 29, 2010, which makes it 4 years and 4 days since I was reunited with my original 1972 Monte Carlo. I will update this web site as the restoration continues.

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