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Old 08-01-2017, 10:33 AM
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DanEC DanEC is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Little Rock area, AR
Cobra Make, Engine: ERA Street Roadster #782 with 459 cu in FE KC engine, toploader, 3.31
Posts: 4,480
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Well, surprisingly at 66 I can still wedge myself in between the seat, the steering wheel, the transmission tunnel and the pedals and deal with a lot of underdash stuff. The trick usually is extracting myself afterwards. If I really need to spend some time under there I pull the seat out which actually makes it fairly comfy lying under there with my stocking feet laying on a towel over the rear deck (I don't have a roll bar.

The screw across the top and sides of the dash panel are primarily what secures it. I thought there were 5 from memory. To pull it out very far or completely, it would be advisable to first pull the steering column out which can be done by the connector in the footwell. Also the tubular braces need to be un-bolted from under the dash and removed and I would remove the seat also. The vent cables should be loosened from the dash panel since they don't have a lot of slack. There's a lot of stuff connected to it so it's best to put a support like a stiff cardboard box on the tunnel to pull the dash to the rear and set it on. On my more recent car the outer two dash screws are actually threaded phillip head bolts and you could get a couple short pieces of all- thread to screw into the body threaded holes to help support the outer ends. You can probably pull the panel out about 4 - 6 inches without much trouble and then you can work over the top and underneath to begin unfastening electrical connections, mechanical gage tubing and speedo/tach cables. The heater should not cause any interference in moving the dash panel out. Most of the wiring harness is feed to a few large connector plugs close to the firewall and they can be unfastened if needed.

If you have a glove box the panels for it on my car do not fasten directly to the dash but they do fit tightly to the dash and some coordination and care when reinstalling may be required to get them in the right place.

Hope this helps some.
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Last edited by DanEC; 08-01-2017 at 10:36 AM..
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