Dashboard

The small metal bars are there from the factory for a reason. The nature of the original vinyl keeps the material from completely bonding to the fiberglass material the dash is made of with just an adhesive.

Even with them, there is some degree of movement of the vinyl from expansion and contraction and that is unavoidable. It is a side effect of the design of the dash.

Time wise of the dash in and out, considering all of the connections that you need to make is about a day in and a day out. You can cosmetically damage some of the components that you need to disconnect and it is possible to crack the front windshield glass under certain conditions.

This isn't a simple undertaking at all.

Keep in mind that screwing with the original Detomaso wiring harness under the dash is not child's play. It is more of a nightmare and you want to avoid handling the thing at all unless you are VERY experienced with identifying each and everyone on sight. They are not labeled and it is very easy to get confused.

There are several "updated" versions of the factory wiring diagram and basically, they are all like "tits on a bull...totally useless".

Working on it requires a lot of concentration and documenting of what gets connected to what with something like a Ptouch label maker. This is not for the faint of heart.

Apparently the harness can vary according to the time period in which the car was built as well further complicating using the factory wiring diagrams? Some harnesses from the factory have pigtails spliced in that do not have continuous color codes.

At some point with the dash out, you will need to deal with the fuse panel and you need to keep track of the polarity of the wires, i.e., which side of the fuses they go to. The factory used different phasing of the stripes on the stripped wires to keep track of that.

I would leave the thing alone unless the loose vinyl is so severe that it looks like the car was in some sort of disaster like a flood or fire.

I've had mine out several times and even switched from a dual pod to a single pod and still find confusion on some of the big circuit carrying wires that seem to be redundant in certain cases.

In addition, those quick connect wire ends on the Bosh or Lucas switches come loose easily once connected and disconnect and will add to the short circuit fire hazards if they ground out.

All that isn't worth the risks if it is just for a low level cosmetic issue that will reoccur after you have corrected it.

You may have convinced me to leave well enough alone, but you've done it several times, so either you love doing this or you did it on different cars.

If I want to go with the metal bar fix, where can they be purchased?

My car is modified so another modification does not matter. I like the 74 dash so much better than the 72. If I was to remove the dash, why not replace it with a 74. Do you know where I might be able to get my hands on one?

@tomkuester posted:

You may have convinced me to leave well enough alone, but you've done it several times, so either you love doing this or you did it on different cars.

If I want to go with the metal bar fix, where can they be purchased?

My car is modified so another modification does not matter. I like the 74 dash so much better than the 72. If I was to remove the dash, why not replace it with a 74. Do you know where I might be able to get my hands on one?

I've never seen those bars listed as available from anyone so I would speculate that you are going to need to source those from a used dash.

Maybe Bosswrench has a handle on that but considering he is using a GT40 dash rather then a Pantera dash, maybe that's a suggestion of what you are getting into?

You need to make the usually rounds of vendors. Hall at one time was THE source for original parts but Wilkinson has really replaced him but even so is nowhere near as comprehensive parts wise.

You could try Larry Stock since he specializes to an extent in Pantera "racing parts" and may have some "take offs" available?

Again, if you are going to a single pod, I'd highly recommend the "euro/fiberglass version" rather then the USA plastic version. One of the Byers brothers had the mold for that at Procession Proformance but since they have now both passed, I don't know the situation.

Detomaso was a bit of a "hot rod shop" on items like this and usually found sources for generic parts in Europe that would work? That is really pretty obvious when you start to find where certain parts like the switches, defroster ducts and the like came from like Fiat, BMW, Alfa, Lancia, etc.

No, I have not worked on several cars. All of this is learned from hard knocks on mine. I've had mine since 1985 and have had it completely apart more then once.

Sometimes I am my own worst enemy since it always seems like if I am doing a repair, why not do an upgrade at the same time if I deem that as inevitable?

So in the sense that you only learn from your mistakes, I must be a genius by now and yet the general consensus is that I am not? I would add that often I am my own worst critic. It's kind of "the Emperor has no clothes" thing and others sympathetically won't mention it to me.

I have seen a factory package of the two (one short, one longer) dash pad bars at Larry Stock's shop in Nevada. The embedded studs remind me of the same arrangement that holds the original vinyl down on the firewall bubble between the seats- don't know what thread but tiny-metric. The hex nuts will be above the glove box so that must come out for installation,

Consider if your vinyl is bulging away from the fiberglas due to shrinkage, that installing some kind of bolt-down bar to draw it back may overstress the vinyl to the point of tearing it. Heating it beforehand may help. I personally do not need the minute amount of flat area I would gain, enough to risk destroying the OEM vinyl.