Question about hard plastic interior panels

[Ghoste]

The hard panels inside the first and third gen Chargers, is there something greatly more difficult about reproducing these than the softer panels such as 68 door panels?  Obviously it is two different processes but what are the manufacturing requirements of each?

[Just 6T9 CHGR]

No clue but dont forget the '70s had hard plastic dash pieces as well

[Ghoste]

Which parts?

[Back N Black]

Which parts?

All the lower dash pads that are padded on 68,69 are plastic on the 70 Charger, even the glove box door.

[Ghoste]

Wow, never knew that.

[Cooter]

Yep, and the glove box door opens DOWN on the '70 Charger....Instead of up on the '68-'69..

[Ghoste]

That I knew.

[68blue]

From what I've seen so far rebuilding my 68 the hard plastic in the car is all injection molded ABS. This usually requires a steel tool (mold) and high pressure press to make these parts, but the costs are low if you make a lot of them. Some stuff like the washer fluid tank is polyethylene.

The other interior parts I am finding to be either sheet or rotocast PVC.

Being lucky enough to be  a chemist retired from an industrial paint company that made the finishes for these plastics I am refinishing both with what was probably close to the origional finishes 40 years ago. Acrylic/butyrate lacquers for the ABS and vinyl coatings for the PVC. Will let you know how it turns out.

[Ghoste]

I don't about the 3rd gens but yes, my understanding is that the fastback interior panels are ABS.  So in their instance at least, it's a tooling cost issue then.

[68blue]

The larger the part the more expensive the mold and the bigger the press required to run it. The last auto interior stuff we made was for polypropylene which had replaced ABS for the most part in interiors. Injection molding will run most any plastic.

Some interior panels might be run with polyurethane foam molding on an aftermarket basis. The tooling costs (silicone rubber molds) are very low but the molds do not last long. Good for short run projects, maybe 100 sets.

[Nacho-RT74]

still waiting for good plastic repros for 3rd gens ( incluidng 74s what are bit diff on rear lowers ).

Alll comments received about existant repros are POS