Hi All -
I dove into the dash today. The unfinished ends and missing padded section on my Vintage always bothered me. Had a free afternoon and decided to see what I could come up with.
First I extended the vinyl so it went all the way to the edge of the cowl. My finished edge is a bit off from the original, as I decided to run it under the tonneau cover stud. It does have a folded seam on the exposed edge, which finished it nicely.
The chrome then needed to be addressed, as it was too short. The dash chrome on these cars is absolutely vintage beetle outside door trim. I bought a whole set to use on the door panels and dash. I shaped it and trimmed it to fit. I did need to add two additional clips (again, from a VW).
Once that was done it was time for the pad. I basically built it like a door panel using 1/8" headliner foam and fiber board backing. I epoxied elevator bolts on the inside with the plan of drilling the dash and attaching the pad with nuts on the back side. It worked really well. Tough part was making the template. Lots of time to get it right. I know there is no cord welt on the original car, but it created a cleaner/tighter edge, and it matched the welt on the instrument cluster dash bezel.
I am very happy with the end result - it feels right, especially with the new door panels. I need to hit with the heat gun tomorrow to smooth out the welt edge, but that's about it. Here is a before and after.
