I'll go back and edit my response to indicate that my glovebox door appears to have been repainted.
My ashtray may also have been repainted -- the interior of the ashtray was also resprayed with a silver paint.
We found out about the glovebox door when I took the door to my painter to come up with a color match. He sanded through and found more than one layer.
But I was having a problem with the ashtray in any dash paint scenario. The ash tray could not have been in place during dash paint. See the
ash tray rivet thread it's evident the ashtray front was painted prior to the zinc butt holder portion being riveted on. And the zinc ashtray frame on the dash could not have been installed either.
That means the ashtray front was painted outside of the dash time frame. Ok, so the whole ashtray assembly was not in the car during dashboard paint. How was it color matched to the dash paint?
Did an outside vendor make these and paint them with "stock paints"? Or painted at the same time as the other interior panels?
But I digress. On with the possible dash paint sequence and we'll get to that . . .
Instead of thinking "how was the dash painted" from a restoration point of view I tried thinking like a production planner and how Ford might set up the line. Here are some thoughts. . .
All of the interior panels could have gone to a spray area and been hung on a cart(s), like the 65/6 picture of the fenders, hood, stone deflector and valance. For a 67 fastback, as it had the most items to paint, you would have all of the rear fiberglass trim, rear metal trim, dash metal trim, rear trap door as well as the ash tray front (if not done by a vendor).
I suppose it's possible these were
all outsourced and came in painted. But that makes me wonder about paint match, number of units in stock, damage, etc. I tend toward painted on site.
The next part relies on painters being painters and non-skilled workers doing grunt jobs. . . . they don't do each other's jobs. It's not efficient. The non-skilled worker sets up the paint mask for the doors. He also brings in a totally bare glovebox door with attached hinges and
loosely puts one or many screws into it on the bottom of the dash. He is not skilled and will not align the door. He then inserts a temporary catch device into the empty glovebox lock hole that has a catch (an L) on the other end. It would be spring steel so it would hold itself in the hole and act like a spring to engage the dash on the other end.
The car then trolleys to a updraft/sidedraft booth and the interior painter(s) enters the interior. For efficiency there would be a painter on both sides as we only have seconds to paint the door interiors and their half of the dash.
The passenger side painter first lightly sprays the dash area that ends up behind the closed glovebox door. He then sprays the back side of the glovebox door. Then he pushes the door up so it is mostly closed as the spring tool engages the back side of the dash. A final spray of the glovebox door and lower dash nets us the unpainted areas on the dash bottom as well as a now completely painted front/rear of the glovebox door. The painter on the other side meets the passenger painter in the middle.
Considering how these cars are trimmed out it's probable there is a trim area that does subtasks like assembling the many parts of the trap door, pop riveting ashtrays, putting deluxe trim on seat bottoms (thinking breakage, so the seat assembly would not have these installed) -- just general work to create larger assemblies out of smaller ones for eventual use on the line. I don't reject that these parts are made offsite by vendors, but again paint match enters my mind. Maybe they didn't care that much about paint match or figured out a way to ensure a proper match. I don't know.
Later, after electrical (and other stuff like headliner, HVAC) the interior line crew hangs a trimmed out trap door, inserts the complete ashtray assembly, hangs the interior fiberglass, etc. Finally the tool is removed from the glovebox door and the glovebox light, plastic insert, rubber bumpers, latch on dash, push button latch and chrome ring are installed. It's here the door is actually aligned and all screws are tightened or installed.
It's also possible that before any HVAC or electrical work was done that the glovebox door (which was loose, right?) was put in a bag and hung somewhere inside to prevent damage as others rummaged around the interior. I can't see installing A/C with the door in the way.
Stuff likes this keeps me up at night!
