Dash, dash, dash....

No, it's not Morse Code. I've been working on the dash and despite many setbacks, things are coming together. Slowly.
A busy work schedule on top of a surgical procedure on my left hand has meant not much progress with Old Yeller. I really want to start reinstalling trim and bumpers, but I feel like I should roll the car outside and wet sand the paint before I put too much stuff on that I would have to work around.
To that end, I decided to turn my attention to painting and assembling some of the dash and the steering column. I also had a bunch of garnish moldings that were prepped for painting.
For this step I purchased rattle cans of acrylic urethane that I had mixed to the factory interior trim color. These cans can
be mixed as single stage spray paint, or with a hardener that you activate by pressing a button on the bottom to release the hardener into the paint, inside the can. There is a 24 hour work time to use the paint after that.
I decided to lay down a base of the turquoise on all of the trim parts, then shoot a top coat of a semi-matte for a nice finish. The moldings came out looking really nice, but I didn't like the effect on the dash, so I used a high gloss on just the top half of the dash, as well as the steering wheel. The results were better than I had hoped! There was one snafu with the dash, however, when in a rush I started the gloss coat without wiping the surface down with a tack cloth. All of the dust and dirt showed up like pimples on a teenager, and in a mild panic I took a cloth soaked in lacquer thinner and wiped the clear coat off. That made an even bigger mess, which I ended up leaving until the next day.
Once I cleared my brain the next morning, I went in with a light once-over with 500 grit paper and got the surface smooth. The base turquoise was intact, so my hope was that a nice deep coat of the clear would mitigate my mistake. Fortunately, I was right, and I'm very happy with the finished product.
I then pulled out the steering column, which has been sitting on a shelf for the past 20 years or so. It

was pretty grimy, but I applied some steel wool dipped in thinner to burnish off the grease and surface rust. I didn't want to completely disassemble the column, since it seemed to operate just fine, so I took the turn signal assembly off (because that always needs replacement with a 60 year old car) and left the rest of the column intact. I then shot a coat of color and matte clear on it, and the thing looked pretty darned good. To allow it to dry without marring the finish, I stood the column on the work bench, balanced on end. It stood there proud and pretty for a week while I busied myself with other things, working around it all week. It soon became just another object on the bench, until I spun around one afternoon and my elbow bumped it. Down to the floor it went, landing hard on the shifter arm end (the part that projects into the engine bay), then bouncing backwards and hitting the thin pot metal cone end where the shift lever attaches.
Why I do such stupid things like leaving a three foot long tube standing on end right in the middle of

my work space for a week is beyond me, because now I had a bent shifter arm on one end and a nice oval shaped cone end on the other. And of course my beautiful paint job was trashed as well.
I waited a good 48 hours before I was able to assess the damage, and by then I had come up with a plan to repair the havoc I had caused. Using the butt end of a screwdriver, I worked it around the inside of the cone until, slowly but surely, the proper round shape came back. I was really worried that I might crack the soft metal, but it was actually pretty pliable and in the end, only I will know what ever happened. I touched up the paint and then--yep--left it standing on end for another day or two. This time, though, I finally laid it down gently on a blanket after I was sure the paint was cured. Disaster resolved!
During all of this, I also installed a new firewall pad, refurbished and installed the wiper cables, as well as the defroster duct. Pretty exciting to see all of this stuff coming out of boxes and going back on the car. I'm still having problems locating and figuring out which screw or bolt goes where, but the pile of

odds and ends gets smaller each day, so it becomes less and less frustrating.
Tonight I had a couple of hours to myself, so I reassembled the steering column and installed it on the car. I ended up taking the whole thing apart after all, because I realized that when it hit the floor it dislodged the wire spring inside the shaft that moves the transmission indicator back and forth. Just as well, because now I'm satisfied that everything is clean and freshly lubed.
I may as well continue working under the dash, since I've got about half of it done now. I have an unopened box from 1999 that is a complete new wiring system for the car. I also have a box on the shelf marked "55 heater" which I have yet to open. I can't recall whether I restored that stuff 20 years ago, so it'll be a little like a mystery surprise when I open it.