Went through my dash (tan interior content)

[Brock Lee]

Alright, I recently wrapped up an overhaul to my dash. Here are some things I need to point out upfront:

My goal is not "showcar appearance". All of my parts are used. I actually want my interior to look used. Not brand new. So you are going to see imperfection.

My car started life with a green interior. In the early 80's someone rattlecanned the entire interior black to match black Chevelle seats they stuck in it. Because my car ended up being a General Lee, I wanted a tan interior. I never cared for the monotone tan colors the Dukes had and many replicar builders have embraced. I wanted a OEM saddle tan interior. Back in 2004 I dyed my dash the usual SEM tan.

Over the years I have picked up enough original tan interior parts to outfit a couple cars. As I slowly added these components to my car, my SEM dyed dash just didn't look right.

The time had come to change my original windshield. I picked up a AMD tinted windshield and figured while the glass was out, I may as well address the dash and make some changes I had been planning on doing anyway.

The paint. Rather then screw around with what people think looks right, I just went with the chip chart, "23076 Buckskin Tan". The sample I tested it on was a dead on match to a 1969 Charger tan dash map light delete plate I saved for future reference. Note, the added hole to the dash frame is for the factory rear window defogger switch. I opted not to cut the gigantic hole like the factory did. I just cut enough for the switch body to clear.

[Brock Lee]

This all went into motion suddenly, and I had yet to buy a stock tan upper dash pad, so I decided to get by I would use my old one. It is still good, just the wrong color. I used the Bluebird brown on it and it was really close to the dash paint. And a decent match for the stock lower dash pads. I may leave it. It looks close enough even for my picky eye.

In the incar pic, the upper dash pad and dash frame are fresh. The passenger side lower door panel is dyed. The rest is OEM tan, including the console, upper pads on doors, lower pads on dash, horn cap, etc. The defogger vents are SEM Bluebird Brown.

So if you think it looks close, and you want the similar colors for your car,

Mix to the 1969 Chrysler interior paint code for Buckskin Tan
Soft dash parts in SEM Bluebird brown

The Bluebird brown is also a great choice for the plastic vents, the kick panels, and the A pillar trim. These will get you as close as you can to nailing that factory dark brown dash area color.

And just for the hell of it, a pic of my interior when I got this car in 2003.

[Brock Lee]

Some additional Misc shots. I forgot to paint my ashtray while doing the dash frame. So I used the Bluebird brown on it. So there is a good example of the stock pads (aged and funky) right beside the Bluebird brown. Its already dusty. Didn't notice until re-sizing the picture.

I also redid the heater controls while I was at it. Years back I did the model paint thing. It didn't age well. So I painted the thing in the semi gloss black and painted the white with lettering enamel. That stuff holds up being outside exposed to elements, so I know it will hold up this time.

Thats about all I got. Gotta get back to putting it together...

[Dino]

Looks great!  Good job!   

Saddle looks so much better than that washed out tan.   

[Mike DC]

          
Yeah, it does look great.  


I agree about the SEM Bluebird brown.  Matches my original Saddle dashboard pretty well.  The SEM color is slightly darker but not much.  



I don't think the very light "Buckskin" GL color was really an intentional change during the TV series.  

They were changing car builders and the new guys were starting from scratch on the details.  The Buckskin color was picked from a paint chip book by the producers & main car builder.  I've looked in some old chip books myself and that chip seems darker when viewed against a white paper page.  And the effects of 35mm film prints tend to magnify the difference between the brown & Buckskin GL interior shades even more than in real life.    They would have known the new interior color was a bit lighter than the previous shade but it probably came as a surprise how much lighter.  It probably stayed because TV shooting works better with bright/light colors in general. 
 

[Brock Lee]

I have often wondered if the lighter tan was inspired by the police car interiors. Or in the lighting (the lighter interior really lit well). Who knows.

But there is the other extreme too. The Veluzat's had that period of time where it looks like they used the dashboard brown for the entire interior of the car.

Anyway, back on topic, once you start going through mutiples of things like the upper door pads, you start finding some variations in hues and such within the same model year. Some lean toward a more golden color, some are browner. The set in there now have a very mottled look for lack of a better term. It took a while to make a complete matching set. It just complimented the aftermarket seat covers better, so I went in that direction.

[Mike DC]

                  
Yeah there is some real variation from car-to-car.  Some aren't much different from the seats & door panels but others are really dark.    


I'm surprised the DOH crew kept the dashboard tops Buckskin.  Sitting inside the car, you see the top of a Buckskin-colored dash reflected in the windshield really badly in the bright sunlight.  It makes it harder to see out.  There's a reason the factories never use too light of a color on the top of the dash even when the seats/doors are very light or white.  

In one of the last few DOH episodes in season#7 they did some in-car shooting, and it looked like they actually taped the dash top black.  They had black on the rear window shelf too.  Reflections had to be the reason.  

[Brock Lee]

I believe it. There are scenes where they used black tape on chrome parts to knock down the reflection in the camera, so they had stuff like that on hand for such uses.

One thing I need to think about is the door area below the lower door panels. When I put the new ones in I want that done. I haven't decided if I am going to go factory and use the T3 bronze, or the SEM Camel to kind of jive with the door panels, or what. The T3 is correct, but matching to the vinyl seems like a more finished look. I may have to put a door panel up against the 71 doors inside to get an idea of how the T3 against saddle looks to make a final decision.

On an aside, the AMD glass fit great. We had our glass guy come over and I helped him put it in. It went fast and he said it was the easiest Charger windshield he has ever installed. So, if that means anything anyone..there ya go.

[Mike DC]

                 
Every original unrestored 2nd-gen Charger I've seen has the metal below the door panels painted like the rest of the interior.  The interior paint shade covers the whole metal door (along the sides of the vinyl panels too) back to the weatherstripping.  The exterior color starts outside the weatherstripping.

[tan top]

 

[Brock Lee]

                 
Every original unrestored 2nd-gen Charger I've seen has the metal below the door panels painted like the rest of the interior.  The interior paint shade covers the whole metal door (along the sides of the vinyl panels too) back to the weatherstripping.  The exterior color starts outside the weatherstripping.

Correct. But these colors used to paint the metal on the doors is exterior paints. On saddle interiors, the doors and the headliner trim on the sides is painted with T3. If you had a T3 painted car with saddle interior, naturally they did not do this process. Just like a black/black car didn't. This detail is listed right on the fender tag. Here is a '69 T7 with a factory tan interior we pulled out of a barn earlier this year. The second line up from the bottom from left to right lists the exterior color which is T7, interior color which is C6T (Tan), and interior paint color which is T3. The interior paint is what is found inside the doors boarded by the weatherstrip.

[Brock Lee]

A factory green with tan interior 69 door. That lighter paint is T3. The exact same paint used on T3 exterior cars.

[Lord Warlock]

Mine is still original and shows the bronze color at the bottom and around edges, I purposely didn't paint over the interior doors and jams, I tried to leave what was good alone.  Too bad I just put the door panel on last week or i'd take a pic. 

[Mike DC]

  
Okay, I'm learning here.  Exterior shades used on the inside halves of the doors.  Interesting. 


But, the headliner trim too?  I've got an original '69 Saddle interior car and I don't think that could possibly be T3 paint on those metal side pieces.  Not the ones exposed on the inside of the finished interior above the side windows, enclosing the side edges of the headliner.  Mine looked like they matched the headliner.  Very light tan and not metallic.      

[Brock Lee]

Maybe it varied factory to factory. I only seem to get Hamtramk stuff. The two side pieces are T3, metallic and all..the windshield part is the same paint is similar to dash in color and texture. I did have a set come out of a junkyard car that looked a little more coppery, but still metallic.

[68charger440]

                 
Every original unrestored 2nd-gen Charger I've seen has the metal below the door panels painted like the rest of the interior.  The interior paint shade covers the whole metal door (along the sides of the vinyl panels too) back to the weatherstripping.  The exterior color starts outside the weatherstripping.

Mine is like that also and it is original.

[Mike DC]

  
My headliner trim around the windshield is the darker (dashboard) shade.  The metal side trim pieces looked more like the lighter headliner color along with the plastic trim around the rear window.  

The OEM headliner was pretty light, like the SEM "Light Oak" or the DOH Buckskin color.  The Saddle Tan cars usually seem to have light colored headliners even when the dash area is only a little darker than the seats/doors.  Although I've seen a couple of cars with headliners pretty near the seats/doors shade.


I'm gonna see if I can find the original color on the side trim pieces next time I look at them.  I might just be remembering it wrong and they're T3 after all.

[Brock Lee]

 
My headliner trim around the windshield is the darker (dashboard) shade.  The metal side trim pieces looked more like the lighter headliner color along with the plastic trim around the rear window.  

Exactly right! The headliner is very light. The front trim is dark and painted like the dash/steering column.

Here is a real switch of headliner beside the T3. The flash is really accentuating the differences. In real life it is less drastic. They used the T3 to work with the lighter colored components, not the dash.

[Brock Lee]

And just because I saw it on my harddrive. The factory T7 with tan interior cars drivers side door. The pads were filthy, but you can see the T3 along the bottom. That was a cool car.

[Mike DC]

 
My car was an original T7/Saddle combo like that.  It was nothing special mechanically but that look is striking. 


I've still got a chunk of headliner pulled from a 2dr 1969 Coronet (Saddle Tan) years ago.  That color shade is way darker than the usual light headliner shade and closer to the seats/doors.  The color on the dash was not as much darker than the seats/doors as on most Saddle cars.  It was really a different looking interior than the majority of the Saddle stuff I've seen.  It was close to being all one solid color inside.   

[Brock Lee]

Yeah, I encountered that problem back when I was crawling through the junkyard for Lee1's interior parts. While there was a tan interior 69 Charger there, the windows were gone and all the interior was exposed to the elements. So I started hitting other B bodies. I found some tan interior 2 door and 4 doors, but the colors were so different, I didn't even want to bother. I did find a 2 door Coronet that had the correct color dash stuff, but it was a rally dash car. I took the woodgrain horn pad, and it was lighter than the lower pads, more like the rest of the interior color. I think the visors in my car may have come from that one.

For more in depth info on the inner door paint, check out this page http://www.wwnboa.org/patik.htm

I thought the order of paint application sounded odd, but I looked at the doors I have and they all fit the steps. Some have pieces of tape stuck in the corners with the body color on top. Most of us will never go this far, but it is interesting anyway. The inside got painted first, then masked off and the the exterior color was painted next.

Now it is time to prime the body. All cars, regardless of body color, use a dark grey primer. Workers in the prime booth spray the door openings, and under/inside the hood/deck areas. Dummy, recycled 1/4" wire latches keep the doors, hood, and deck lid shut. Robot guns on curved tracks spray the sides, roof, hood, and deck lid outer body, their spraying actions programmed according to the car's body style. The insides of the car, and the underside receive only overspray.

Booth overspray is collected by water that flows downward all along the sides of the spray booth and over to its center, where it catches the paint particles in the downdraft through the open steel gridwork floor.

The "Upper Door Frame" (UDF) color is sprayed on any inside metal of the body shell that will not be covered by upholstery or metal finish panels. This colored paint is sprayed on before the primer overspray has dried.

Cars remain in the primer baking oven for approximately twenty-five minutes at 350-375 degrees. This high heat is intended also to cure the weld primers and vinyl plastisol sealers, which were applied with a gun to panel joints prior to being welded together.

The primer is wet-sanded at Lynch Road, using power disc hand-sanders, which have built-in water sprayers. Only the outside of the body is sanded. Following a wipe-off of primer residue, the body is cleaned with naphtha, then wiped with an alcohol-and-water solution. The UDF color is masked off by hand, with tape and masking paper.

The baking oven for the color coat has a temperature of about 250 degrees, and baking time is twenty to thirty minutes. If a car comes out of the oven with paint problems, (usually dirt, sags, or drips) it goes to a Paint Shop repair hole. There the finish in the problem area is correctly prepared, the surrounding area is masked off, color-coating is applied, and the car is sent to the repair area's oven.

Those rare cars (fleet cars, usually) that are to be two-toned (painted metal roof different than body color), are removed from the exit line of the baking oven. They are placed on the entrance line to the paint booth, where the lower body is masked off. In the paint booth the roof color is sprayed, then the car passes through a baking oven again.

[Brock Lee]

Okay, so i really hate the way my center dash pad was looking, so I decided to tackle that.

I used a heat gun on a low setting to soften the rubber and stretched it to at least gets the vents to fit. That took out the "frowny" look. I also got the material to go back over the exposed metal backing corners a bit better than it was. It took a while as I discovered you can't do it all at once and it tries to go back to its old shape quickly, so I started by heating it up and getting the left side in position, epoxied the foam to the back, let it set up, them moved towards the right. It isn't perfect, but way better than it was. I know many of us struggle with these pads. Particularly the AC version.

Just a note, if you attempt to do this, don't let any heat from the gun come in contact with the vents. They soften faster than the rubber. Luckily I had a extra set to experiment with.

I still have a little tweaking to do on the right side, but it is close.

[GeneralLee440]

That looks alot better Brock

[mopar4don]

This all went into motion suddenly, and I had yet to buy a stock tan upper dash pad, so I decided to get by I would use my old one. It is still good, just the wrong color. I used the Bluebird brown on it and it was really close to the dash paint. And a decent match for the stock lower dash pads. I may leave it. It looks close enough even for my picky eye.

In the incar pic, the upper dash pad and dash frame are fresh. The passenger side lower door panel is dyed. The rest is OEM tan, including the console, upper pads on doors, lower pads on dash, horn cap, etc. The defogger vents are SEM Bluebird Brown.

So if you think it looks close, and you want the similar colors for your car,

Mix to the 1969 Chrysler interior paint code for Buckskin Tan
Soft dash parts in SEM Bluebird brown

The Bluebird brown is also a great choice for the plastic vents, the kick panels, and the A pillar trim. These will get you as close as you can to nailing that factory dark brown dash area color.

And just for the hell of it, a pic of my interior when I got this car in 2003.

Brock,
So what did you mix the OE color code in PPG?
Cause when I had it mixed it was not even close!

Maybe the question should be is how exactly did you have it mixed?

[Brock Lee]

I had the factory color code mixed in the original suede textured lacquer. Not a urethane.

The shots of it and the headliner trim piece on saw horses is about an hour after I applied the last coat.