12 minutes ago, Dave WM said:

I presume the electric assist that fits under the dash then?

Remember make sure you get that dash push as far back on the frame as you can, you want the side edges to extend enough to fit behind the door molding. The holes for mounting the dash are oversized to give you some wiggle room. Removing the dash turns out to be not that big a deal, the engineers at Nissan that designed this car really did us all a favor.

Correct, picked up the kit from Silver Mine when they had it for $900 back in November.  Will finally get a chance to install it.

And thanks for the tip, my plan is to tackle moving the components from the old dash to the new dash this weekend.

keep track of how that trip milage reset cable routes. a pic would be best. Seems trivial but can be confusing also note the wire routing around that area, you don't want to have one of the driver side wires (buzzers/door switch) wrapped around something that ends up making them too short to reinstall. Trying to re route AFTER the dash is in in a pita.

Just finished transferring the components from the old dash to the Vintage Dash pad.  It was a bit of work, but I took my time and took lots of pics along the way to help me with the reassembly. 

Overall, I'm very happy with the end result and can't wait to install this back in the car.  Will do this once the weather gets a bit warmer.

A few thing to note for anyone that's taking this route:

1. Read the treads above for the folks that have installed this already, they provided some great tips that helped with the install.
2. I had to trim the back of the speedo and tach part of the dash, it was way too tight and there was a small lip of dash foam.  I trimmed this with an exacto knife, about a couple of mm, and was able to fit the gauges in.  This is fully covered by the gauges and not visible.
3. There is a small gap on the top part of the Amp/Fuel gauge.  From a sitting angle, this should not be noticeable.
4. There are 21 screws that hold the frame to the dash pad.  Some of the metal attachments on the dash pad are covered by foam, you should remove this with a blade before you install the foam.  This will allow you to find the holes for the screws when the frame is on.
5. I ended up putting 20 out of the 21 screws from the frame.  The one above the cigarette lighter was difficult to attach, was not able to locate this with the frame on.  I said screw it, and did not bother with it.  There are already 20 screws and its already well fastened.
6. For the hoses, I added some tape to the plastic ends for the small hoses, and some thin weather stripping to the large hoses.  This provided a solid seal, the current ones were very loose.

Hope this helps and good luck!

Dave, great installation notes!  I didn’t have an issue with your point number 2.  No trimming to make the speedo/tach gauges fit.  The fuel/ammeter hole was a bit loose, as you mentioned in number 3.  I had the same experience with numbers 4 and 5.  I replaced all my hoses when I did my dash installation, and they were snug.

Edited March 20, 20205 yr by SoCalJim

8 hours ago, SoCalJim said:

Dave, great installation notes!  I didn’t have an issue with your point number 2.  No trimming to make the speedo/tach gauges fit.  The fuel/ammeter hole was a bit loose, as you mentioned in number 3.  I had the same experience with numbers 4 and 5.  I replaced all my hoses when I did my dash installation, and they were snug.

Nice.  Where did you find the replacement hoses?  

Installed the dash this weekend.  Overall, it's a great fit and had no issues with the fitment.  I have to say, this is a high quality reproduction.  

The wiring was all labelled before I removed the dash, so it was just a matter of plugging it into the right connectors.  While I had the dash out, I also installed the power steering unit and wired this up.

Double checked all my connections and wiring and fired up the car.  Everything worked including the power steering.  So this had been a very productive weekend.

Next weekend I'll complete the centre console, trim and install the bluetooth amp.   

Woot! Awesome news!


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Congrats!   Is the electric power steering the Silvermine unit?

23 minutes ago, S30Driver said:

Congrats!   Is the electric power steering the Silvermine unit?

Correct

lots of 280z's going to have nice dashes if this keep up. Before you know it finding one with a cracked dash will be rare!

11 hours ago, YZFMax said:

Installed the dash this weekend.  Overall, it's a great fit and had no issues with the fitment.  I have to say, this is a high quality reproduction.  

The wiring was all labelled before I removed the dash, so it was just a matter of plugging it into the right connectors.  While I had the dash out, I also installed the power steering unit and wired this up.

Double checked all my connections and wiring and fired up the car.  Everything worked including the power steering.  So this had been a very productive weekend.

Next weekend I'll complete the centre console, trim and install the bluetooth amp.   

Thank you for the honest feedback. The dash looks amazing in your car. 

Hi,

I received two dashes and each one had too much vinyl cut away - either at the center gauges or at the vents.

Am I just extremely unlucky? Is this a new problem with a new batch? Or is this normal and most people accept this?