[Gmachine1911]

So, once the blasting and epoxy was complete, the plan was to bring it home and get the dash AC vents figured out, attach the drive by wire throttle pedal mount, fabricate the AC evaporator mounting brackets and get the firewall and dash ready for paint - basically, complete all welding on the dash and firewall so they could be painted. Since the body shop already had the car and since I wasn’t super happy with my patch job on the heater motor hole and since I also didn’t feel I had the skills to do the AC vents to the level they needed to be, I went ahead and had them handle those items for me. This will save some back and forth, give me a real boost on getting the car back to a rolling chassis faster and the quality will be much better, especially on the firewall and dash work.

I was really torn about what to do with the dash vent situation. I knew I didn’t like the look of the under-dash mounting that comes with the VA evap kit and I’ve seen other threads where oval vents were used on 67’s but my dash, for whatever reason, didn’t have the same available space between the raised areas for the switches and the sides of the dash (on the driver side). It’s frustrating and I searched high and low for a small vent that had a diameter that’d fit within the flat area of the lower dash. The only thing I could find were The “Nano vents” from Restomod Air. They use a small hole about 1.62” and the finished diameter of the vent is not much bigger then the switch bezels. They would definitely fit, however, they use a 1.5” diameter duct hose or an adapter to fit Restomod’s standard 2” duct hose. Vintage Air uses 2.5” hose as standard. I didn’t feel I could “shrink” the Vintage Air hoses down effectively 1/2” without making them leak and I was also afraid that these small vents would whistle when the airflow was on high which would be annoying. I was also concerned about the look of such a small vent and it’s ability to provide enough airflow as air will always take the path of least resistance unless you direct it completely (hence the possibility of leaking and/or whistling). Anyway, on top of all that, the vents are $185 each so I’d have about $800 in parts that I might not be happy with at the end of the day. So long story short, since I’ll have to look at this dash for a while, I opted to go the more expensive route and get the dash modified to accept a standard size (2.5” hole) vent. I think this will provide the best finished product and be the most functional at the end of the day. It was necessary to fill the ash tray location but I think it cleans up the dash nicely and to those who aren’t familiar with the dash of a Second Gen Nova, it may not even be noticeable.

Now that the metal work is complete, they’ll do the body work on the dash and firewall and apply some paint. When it comes home, I can finish some detail work, apply the bedliner, get the brake and fuel lines bent, and get the car off the rotisserie and get the front and rear suspension back under it and ready to move to the next stage. Anyway, here’s some progress pics

This is the firewall with all the holes filled. The fuse panel hole was relocated behind the inner fender and enlarged for the AAW harness that’ll be going in. The did a great job getting the passenger area super flat and smooth. The area around the steering column will be body-worked leaving an indention of the original hole...I like the shape of the firewall and wanted to keep as much of the character as possible