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So I began to modify the dash to accept the air conditioning vents I am installing. The Old Air Products a/c unit I purchased was sent with the under dash rectangular pieces that, in my opinion, look like a terrible afterthought. My supplier simply made a mistake, so I began looking for original style vents. I found some on Summit. They had the left and right kit and the centre vent came separately. These are Vintage Air products. Oh, don't worry about the pieces playing nice; that's not where this story is going.


I began marking and laying out the side vent cuts. I was nervous of course, because you have to cut a 3.5" hole in the dash beside the gauges and glovebox. But my fear was baseless. Everything went well on the sides.

The centre vent however was a different story. Since it was a separate piece it didn't come with instructions. So I went on to Vintage Air's website to find some. I found some instructions for a 67-72 C10 WITHOUT factory air & installing FACTORY style vents. Golden? Just wait. I began to mark out the cut lines above the radio and my spider sense was tingling. Something wasn't quite right. With the dash pad, radio, and dash curvature, perhaps Vintage knew something I did not. So I ignored my gut and went with Vintage's instructions… for a 67-72 C10 WITHOUT factory air installing FACTORY style vents.

This is where I got mad. Trust your gut sometimes, fellas. Turns out the cut was in the wrong spot. I had to be about 3/4" lower. C'mon Peter Parker, trust that spider sense. Because of this error, I had a substantial gap ABOVE the centre vent in the dash. ARGGGGGH! So my little 1 hour job of drilling some holes turned into a fabrication session where I had to make a patch panel, weld it in, metal finish it, and then recut the opening. 4 hours later...

If someone had done this on a finished dash, could you imagine?! I am also lucky because I have the ability to fix a ridiculous mistake like this. A little epoxy, skim of filler, paint, the vent installed, dash pad installed, the repair will be invisible. I had the pad on when my wife checked in.

"I don't see the big problem and why you were so mad."

"Perfect, that's how it should be," I replied.


Hours: 452