ronmanfredi

Does your Avanti's drivers side washer nozzle hit the hood when it's closed? My 06 model did, in fact, it appears the factory cut out a portion of the hood and ground down the back side of the nozzle to try and get some clearance. It's obvious the problem is that either the hood was made incorrectly or it has "dropped" over the years due to a weak structure. I decide to remove the windshield wiper panels to see what options I had to fix this. The factory drilled a 1/4" hole at the top of the panel and stuck the nozzle in it. In order to lower it, the panel needs to be thicker in that area, so I took a piece of 1/4" thick plexiglass that I had laying around and cut a 4" long strip that I could glue underneath the existing nozzle hole. Before installing the strip, I trimmed out the existing hole to make it square so the nozzle could drop down through the panel. Next I drilled the 1/4" hole into the center of the plexiglass strip, which is where the nozzle would now attach to. The last thing to do was to glue the strip into the underside of the panel. I installed the nozzle into the plexiglass strip and the placed it into position. It was a perfect fit, so I glued it in place. Here are the after repair photos:

https://www.stangerssite.com/CVparts.html

My drivers side door lock had the same problem. After lubricating all the parts thoroughly, it now works fine. On the window wiskers / rubber, you can get the correct ones from Studebaker International or Nostalgic Motors.

We recently purchased our second Avanti after attending the AOAI meet this year. This one is a 2006 model, #11, sits on a Mustang chassis with 100,000 well taken care of miles on it from the original owner. He had a Sirus controller added, which I didn’t care for and some of the OEM applied woodgrain finish was chipping off in various locations. I decided to remove the Sirus controller and cover the woodgrain surfaces with Black Carbon Fiber. The car is Red, with a Red and Black interior and the woodgrain finish didn’t match it in my opinion, so we went with Black CF. I purchased the Avery semi-Gloss Black 3.5 mil Carbon Fiber off Amazon after reading the reviews of several manufacture’s products. Disassembly: After removing the A/C vents and sliding the console back, the dash panel literally just fell off. It had been removed previously to install the Sirus unit and they couldn’t get it to stick back in place, so they put some gobs of silicon in places and reinstalled it. (that didn’t hold either). The wood grain dash panel was warped badly as well. So, step one was to remove all the old OEM white foam sticky tape and silicon gobs from the fiberglass dash and wood grain panel. Then I used a heat gun with physical pressure to straighten out the dash panel as much as possible while removing the Sirus unit and wiring. The next surprise was the fact that the radio and A/C controls had spacers behind their mounting screws to hold them in the correct position since the fiberglass dash wasn’t made correctly. I removed all the Sirus stuff and then reinstalled the Radio and A/C controls. Now I wanted to check the fit of the dash panel before added the carbon fiber to it and discovered the next surprise, the dash itself wasn’t flat across the front. The instrument cluster has a 1/4” thick rubber gasket that surrounds it. It presses on the clear glass panel that is attached to the back of the dash panel with 2-sided tape. Without any pressure on the gasket, the panel sits off the dash almost 3/8". On top of that, the dash isn’t flat, it tapers outwards toward the edges. There is no way the dash panel would sit flat and stay in place because of this. To resolve this issue, I added 3/16” and 1/4" plywood strips to the dash using small screws and adhesive. This allowed the panel to sit flat on the dash after compressing the instrument cluster seal just a little. Next was to wrap the dash panel, transmission console trim, door handle and window control trims. The plastic silver steering wheel trim was scratched and scuffed badly (new is $268) so I decided to remove them, sand them down and wrap them as well. Now I could install everything. Using 3M 1/2" wide, double sided black trim tape, the dash panel installed easily and sat nice and flat on the dash. Note, that I used 3M tape primer on the wood strip surfaces to ensure the tape would stick correctly. We really like the end result and while CF may not be for everyone, we sure like it.

Found one, Thank you Randy Atkin!

I'm sure, but one member thinks he has 1 in his parts stash, so I'm hoping. Thanks

I recently purchased a 2006 Avanti and it's missing one wheel medallion. I have found a black center cap that will work, so I will purchase the medallion by itself or with the cap, whatever is available. Thank you!

I'd remove the existing gauges from the aluminun dash panel and take it along with the black panel to a quality sheet metal shop and see if they can bend it for you.

Personal attacks aren't necessary

I tried to bend them and it didn't work, so I did a cut on each end and put a 45 degree angle on the outer pieces so they sit flush against the center piece.

Decorative Plastics. I have enough to do another complete car if you want it. $50 plus shipping.

Well you bought my swheel, so that's taken care of. If you want to pull all the panels and send them to me, I'd consider doing the inserts like I did on mine, I just need to figure out a price.

One of the things that I wanted to update on our 1982 Avanti II were the dash and console wood. The Italian Ash was warped, cracked and one piece was missing. I had replaced a few gauges since they weren’t working when I bought the car and the new ones had whiter letters and were brighter at night as well. So I decided to replace the remaining gauges, replace the wood and replace all the dash and console lights with modern symbol marked / colored LED lights from “Alpinetech”. Their LED lights are available on Amazon, in chrome or black in 5/6” or 1/2” diameter. I used mostly 5/6” except for the 1/2” emergency brake light and the check engine light in the dash and console. I removed and deleted the old console broken “seat belt light” as well. After several weeks of looking, I could not find Italian Ash 1/8” thick wood, so I went with a multilayer synthetic/ABS sheet. Next was to remove all the gauges, the dash panel, and do the same with the console. Then (and with care) I slowly removed the glued down Ash wood so that I would have a pattern to cut the ABS sheet. ( I taped up all the damaged areas as I removed the old wood to keep the pattern accurate). Once all the wood was off, then I used it as patterns to mark the ABS sheet so I could cut each piece out. At this stage, I took a break to refinish the dash and dash end caps since they needed it. Next was to invest in a Harbor Freight 16 in. Variable-Speed Scroll Saw to cut the ABS and it worked like a champ. Once each piece was cut out and trimmed as needed, I then glued each panel on using Gorilla Clear Glue and let them sit overnight. The next day, I cut out all the small light holes for the new LED lights, gauge holes and then installed all the panels and gauges back in. I really like the new look and went one step further by purchasing a Lecarra leather covered, 2 spoke vintage steering wheel which exposes the dash more and looks better to me than the old Momo 3 spoke wood wheel. I am very satisfied with this upgrade and have enough ABS sheet left to do one more car completely that I can offer for sale to anyone interested.