The
dash pad on the 1967 Imperial is held to the metal inner core of the dash
casting by 14 fasteners of 4 different types.
It is possible to remove the pad without much additional disassembly,
but it is difficult and painstaking work.
Getting in a hurry will almost certainly result in a damaged pad.
The usual damage is a crack in the inner foam core, such that the
covering will split or at least make a depression that is very visible.
The
fasteners are as follows:
A: 4 chrome Phillips head
trim screws, 2 at each end of the dash.
These can usually be seen by opening the doors wide - on some cars
the chrome trim piece that extends down the A pillar must be removed for
access.
B: 3 cad plated Phillips head sheet metal screws that go up into
the pad from the underside of the projecting edge of the dash.
Two of these can be seen by looking upwards from the floor, just �
inch away from the surface of the main dash bezel on the driver�s side,
plus one on the glove box side of the dash, just to the right of the HVAC
controls, but in line with the two on the driver�s side.
The screws on the driver�s side can be removed with a right angle
Phillips driver without taking the bezel off, but it is a long and tedious
process. The one on the right
side is fairly easy to remove.
C: 3 3/8 hex nuts with captive washers that are buried up behind
the glove box, roughly behind the grab handle.
The only way to access these is to fish your hand up behind the glove
box, and the spacing is very tight. I
found it easier to unscrew the glove box fiberglass box from its mounting so
that it can shift a little to allow my hand up there. (The fiberglass or cardboard �box� is very difficult to
remove without damage, as it really doesn�t fit through the door opening
without bending it, so if you can avoid doing that, it is worth doing.)
If you feel all the way toward the right end of the dash, you will
feel a series of small nuts, threaded to studs that protrude from the dash
casting toward the front of the car. The only way to get a tool on these nuts is to use a
very short nut driver, or a � drive ratchet with a short extension, fitted
to a 3/8� socket. There
are more of these up there than you need to remove for this job, just take
the last 3 toward the right, the others hold other items.
If you remove the right air vent first, it makes life a little
easier, as space is really cramped by the AC air duct back there.
By the way, you do not have to remove the grab handle, it is not
involved with holding the dash pad in place.
D. 7 spring type �snap through� retainers, exactly
like the ones that hold inner door panels on most cars. These are captive in the pads, in fact they are molded into
the foam core, so you must be careful not to damage these; there is really
no way to replace them. These
retainers snap through from the top of the dash.
3 of them are just about
� inch rearward from the leading edge of the pad.
The left most one is near the curved left edge of the pad, the second
one is in about 6 inches from there toward the center of the car, and the
3rd is in a corresponding location on the passenger side of the car.
The other 4 are situated around the speaker cutout of the dash pad,
and can be seen and removed after taking down the vent control panel.
If
you try to pull the pad upward to snap these retainers out of their holes,
you will almost certainly pull one or more of the retainers out of the foam,
so don�t even try it! The
only safe way to get these to pop out of their holes is to push them up from
under the dash. To do this you
will need a long arm, a good light, and a pair of pliers that can squeeze
the clip�s �knees� together to make them pop up through the hole in
the dash. Do the
ones around the speaker cutout first, this will help you develop a technique
for when you tackle the hard ones.
A
couple of things to watch for are:
If
the car has twilight sentinel, you must remove the ambient light sensor from
the top of the dash before starting this whole project.
This can be done from under the dash - the sensor extends down into
the dash near the left corner of the windshield, and is held in place by a
�tinnerman nut�, which is a spring steel barbed retainer that is really
not designed to be removed without damage.
The only way I know to get these off is to pull on the 4 sharp tangs
that dig into the plastic sensor stem, one by one, working your way down the
stem slowly until finally the retainer comes all the way off the stem.
I use a dentist�s tooth scraping hook to do this, but any sharp
pointed tool with a hook on it should work.
If you have to, sacrifice an ice pick by bending the last � inch of
the tip over at a 90 degree angle (use heat to avoid breaking it!).
The twilight sentinel sensor has a 2 wire connector on it, which is
too large to go through the hole in the dash, so you must either push out
the individual copper contacts, or cut the wires and then re-solder them
when you reinstall the sensor.
If
the car has ATC, be sure that your replacement pad is from an ATC car, as
you need the grille assembly which holds the ambient air temperature sensor
that is right in front of the driver�s nose.
That grille was also present on some non-ATC cars, probably those
built in the last few weeks, but in a non
- ATC car, it has no purpose.
If
the car has the automatic headlight dimmer, the sensor may or may not be
mounted through the pad - I don�t think it is but since I haven�t
personally inspected one of these cars, I can�t be sure.
Make sure you know how to remove that before you start on the rest of
the project!
The
following pictures may help to clarify what I have said above:
