It's been warming up. been workin like a fool!

As you have seen in earlier posts, I have a digital dash in the stock instrument cluster. It is a very cool addition but trying to hook it up to the trans has been a pain.  It requires a pulse to drive.I also want to hook up the stock Chevy cruise control. Dale found me a solution.

Dakota Digital has a unit that will drive any digital speedometer. The ultimately cool

thing is that it doesn't hook to the trans or drive train at all. It uses GPS satellite technology.

It picks up the signal and uses it to determine movement and turns it into a pulse to drive a digital speedometer.  It only needs  hot and switched 12v, a ground, and a lead to the speedo. It also has a separate hook up for a cruise control unit. You can program the pulse number to drive any unit from 4000 per mile to 32000.Once you get it set it will put out a test pulse to check the display. It will read 60 mph. Programed and tested without leaving the garage.  Worth every dollar!!!

Since the unit should be able to see the sky for the best results I decided to mount it on top of the dash, where the stock ashtray was.

and of course I had to take most of the stuff in the dash out. It's getting crowed in there with the stereo head unit ,air conditioning, and assorted wire and hoses.

Here it is mounted. I made a wood plug to cover it and it will be covered with the same leather as the interior.

I got the door panels covered and door pull assembled. I will wait to finish mounting them till later.

Another quandary has been the headliner over the front seats. There is no structure there to hold up a board, so Ron suggested gluing it all into place. 

I masked up the area and sprayed contact cement to both surfaces and wrestled the material into place. 

worked like a charm.

Got the overhead console mounted and all the electronics hooked back up.
 Interior lighting,power window switches,Sirius radio dock, and camera monitors both sides and rear. 

             THE SEATS ARE HERE!

  I've been waiting with great anticipation for the seats to get finished. Ron Petrella,an old club member has been busy working on them. He did the interior on Rick Swanks' van, that won best interior at last years Nationals.  He is quite good at it.

The stitching design was done by Rick's wife Elaine Swank, before the panels were sewn into the seats. Awesome job,.  

I couldn't wait to see what they would look like in the van.

O man I'm digin' it!!

I also did a mount for my Ipad under the dash.I have all my music on it and it can be controlled thru the alpine head unit. This makes it look built in and the Ipad wont be flopin' around while driving.

I am at the point where I need to take EVERYTHING out and start covering it all with material!   I'm done building and its time to assemble it all.     woohoo !