1976 Chevy Camaro Interior Upgrade and Installation - Inside Job

We got replacement parts for many items, but not every item in a '76 Camaro is available as a reproduction. Plus, it's wasteful to spend money to replace a part that is functional, yet cosmetically challenged. Dupli-Color makes a wide range of paints formulated specifically for vinyl, fabric, and plastic. Here we give the lower dash section a fresh coat of semi-gloss black.

Good painting results are all about doing the proper prep-work. Here Hunkins removes 30 years of grime and dirt from the lower door panels with some lacquer thinner. These lower door sections are not available from the aftermarket, so making the old ones look good was our only option.

On the left is the "before," and on the right is the freshly rehabilitated "after" lower door panel. Nobody makes the Firethorn-red interior coating, but Dupli-Color's Deep Red was a dead-on match. We applied several coats to make sure it would hold up well. Virtually all the red interior parts ended getting hit with Dupli-Color; we went through six cans of HVP-107.

When doing an interior, it's important not to forget the hidden stuff. These replacement plastic water shields will protect the new door panels from Mother Nature, and they only cost a few bucks. The original factory shields were made from paper.

Here's the completed door panel. We also replaced the window crank and door latch bezel with units from Year One. The procedure was repeated for the driver's side door, but we did have to cut a hole for the sideview mirror control lever. The door panel had this area perforated, so making the hole was easy.

New door sills really added a nice finishing touch to the interior since the original sills were pretty beaten after years of shoe scrapes.

The new center console easily bolts in place, and other than a few highlights on the storage box (mentioned later), it's simple enough for us to skip, so we're moving on to the new dash. The clips from the old dash were installed into the new piece, and the whole unit "snaps" into place. There are about six clips across the length of the pad, so it takes a bit of persuasion to get them lined up.

Our Camaro used a two-piece door panel. The red arrow points to one of the clips that joins the upper and lower panels. The blue arrow points to one of the push clips that will affix the panel to our door. We removed the original clips carefully and were able to re-use them. A small pry-bar worked great for this. Warning: Do not break off the plastic tabs on the lower door panels-they can't be replaced!

Here's the old gauge cluster and our new one. Getting rid of the idiot lights will let us keep track of g/28's mill better, and the addition of a tachometer was a given. Look for a story on installing this Covan's Classic cluster in an upcoming issue of PHR.

When replacing the dash, it's a good time to replace the inner glove box. Ours was actually missing entirely, so we really didn't have a choice.

On the left is the new center console lid pad, in the center is the old pad, and on the right is the old lid. This is a perfect example of why you shouldn't throw away any of the old stuff until the job is done. When we got the new center console, it didn't include any of the hardware. We were able to use the latch from the old lid and the old short screws saved us a trip to the fastener store. The red arrow points to a catch that was riveted to the old pad. We couldn't find this new, so we drilled out the rivets and used it on the new pad.

The original headliner was made of cardboard, and pretty much junk. The replacement from Year One is a superior piece that will outlive the car. Since we wanted Firethorn, we had to order the bare plastic headliner and the fabric separately. If you need black, then it can be ordered pre-covered. We had Westminster Auto Upholstery glue the fabric to the plastic prior to our install, which is a two-person job. The headliner is held in place by the dome light and the perimeter trim. We installed the trim on the passenger side, slid the headliner into the gap, lifted it up, snapped in the driver's side trim, and installed the new dome light bezel. This was enough to hold it in place until we installed the front and rear trim. We later found out that you can get the headliner already wrapped in dark red material (PN AHF74DKR $161).

Ever since we installed the five-speed, it's hard to heel-toe shift since the gas pedal is so far from the brake. We asked Modo Innovations to design pedals to fix the problem (PN MI-130, $135). This consists of Modo's regular pedal set, only with a wider gas pedal. Installation was as easy as drilling a few holes and bolting them in place with the included hardware.

When the engine bay was refreshed (see "Underhood Rehab," Jan. '07), we removed the A/C system and broken radio. This left us with large holes in the dash. A quick trip to the local hobby story got us some plastic sheet to make some low-buck block-offs. To give the smooth plastic some texture, we shot it with Dupli-Color MX-101 Charcoal textured paint.

The new interior looks better than new, and we no longer have to cringe at the thought of giving someone a ride. While there are a lot of parts to deal with, no particular aspect was difficult. The results are worth it, both aesthetically and financially from a resale standpoint.