Marcquito

Haha. Easy. The early heater-box assembly is removed for enlarging of the hole. I need to do some metal work in the battery tray area anyway since battery acid has eaten a hole into the cabin.

Metal work is easy, I'll fab up a nice hole with mounting tabs for the late style heater box.

Marcquito

Yeah I trashed everything, and I mean everything involving early junk which will not be used. I'm taking the whole thing in steps- which means after I found the correct mounting point of the dash, I uninstall it and do lots of tedious wiring and arranging behind the dash to make it 'pretty'.

Really- if anyone has ANy parts they can offer I would appreciate it. The only thing about this project that I am regretting is the fact that I do not have a junk car which would make life easier.

harrisonrick

dude...good luck...keep posting pics. you'll inspire the earlies.

Marcquito

Guys, an update! I've done a fair share of work on the car these past few nights. In a nutshell, I made a template of the bottom of the heater-blower-box to get an idea of how much metal needs to be cut for the fit. There is a bit of rust due to the battery acid eating through the body, but it no longer exists since I've cut most of it away. Here are some pics of my work:


The original 'early' blower motor hole.


interior shot before the early style a/c evaporator assembly was removed


this is the hole where obviously the old style a/c assembly was located, but now gone and ready for the later style.


early style hole from the bottom.


Here's my father using an air-nibbler tool to make a clean cut for the later blower box.


another shot from the bottom.


interior shot with the early style a/c evaporator assy. removed.


the new hole from the bottom


and here's a view of what the car looks like now. two big holes. the battery tray will be repaired when the other metal work is done. Thank God that rust is now off the body.


my new dash and center console




the new dash and console fitted for fun!


my blower motor. yeay.

Enjoy!

Marcquito

anyway, i have a slew of parts coming soon thanks to Judson951. It's mainly everything I need to get the a/c working properly. Once installed I can work on the wiring and whatnot. Easy! Alongside that is many random trim pieces coming.

I still don't know if I want to use the stock gauge pod or fab up a dash bezel myself.

THis is definitely a fun project so far! We'll see how it goes...

FRporscheman

Wow, nice. I'm glad someone is doing a swap most people say can't be done...

My vote is you should make a custom gauge plate to stick all your old gauges into. Put the 3 gauges plus the oil pressure gauge and clock in an array like a 911 dash. Maybe get some red/white 924S gauges instead of yellow 944 gauges.... but that should look pretty cool! And definitely unique.

Marcquito

Dude, totally what I was thinking. The 911 gauge idea is sick! I'm not going to use the 924 gauges or the gauges that came with the car- I'll go with a newer style VDO. I like the idea to keep the clock and oil pressure with the other gauges- that would also make sense since I'll be doing the clock delete in the dash.

I just wonder if I'll be able to fit that many gauges in that small of a space. I know the 911 has much more room than the 944 for gauge space.

Po924S

NICE!!!! Can you say....jelous? haha. Is this really a hardcore job like people said?

Marcquito

So far the job isn't so bad at all. The metalwork is easy- the metal is thin and flimsy enough to work with. The wiring is very primitive and simple. The best way to look at is is the same as a custom hot rod: you make everything fit! nobody makes parts that fit into the car flawlessly. You have to fab everything. I really like this project- it's the most fun I have had working on a car in awhile.

GloriaRedStang

Those are great ideas, Marc & Arash! I'm guessing you might not even be able to use the late speedo and tach with your early car anyway. If you run out of space in your main pod, you can stick some gauges underneath your stereo.

Go Marc Go!

P.S. Keep track of time and cost of this project if possible. I'm sure there's lots of early guys (me excluded) who will want to try this project.

Spidey944

only thing I can see about this project is that your hacking into a lot of areas that one would not be able to put back if it does not work. Installing the dash and console are one thing. Making it all work again is another!

Relaxed90

Man...it seems some folks in this board are scared to cut metal or something.

Can't put it back the way it was? It's metal! WELD IT BACK ON.

Potomac-Greg

Worst case scenario, you button it up, strip it out, and turn it into a track car! Clearly, this is the work of an enthusiast. It makes no sense economically but it is entirely emotionally driven. Good work

Marcquito

Seems to me the reason most people consider this conversion to be 'impossible' would be the metal work. The car isn't made of 1/4" stainless, therefore making metal work almost too easy. The only thing separating you guys from battery acid and water in your cabin is a sheet of metal about as thick as 5 sheets of paper.

Whatever I have cut can not be put back. It's in strips and mangled pieces. Worst case, like... if I were to give up (not likely) you could build a better and more effective tray for the battery and the rest of the metal work can be solid without a hole for the blower box and driven as-is.

If I run into anything horrific I will be sure to say something, but I can almost doubt it.

white924s

great work so far! Looks really sharp. One other option for the dash is getting a standalone ECU like Motec or AEM and getting a digital dash to go with it (I think that a company named AiM makes a bunch of models). It would probably look a little more racecar-ish, and you would have to tune the ECU (great time to add a turbo to the engine too!) but I htink the end results could be pretty sweet and it would save you the trouble of fitting a bunch of gauges into that space (the ones I'm thinking of are basically multifunction LCD screens with the circuitry to read a bunch of sensors and output from the ECU)