Hi Dave,
The rebuild sequence from a bare shell definitley isn't a fixed checked list. I have been working on all sorts of systems all over the car. Its really good if you get frustrated with one part of the car to have another area to work on as a 'cool off' strategy. I am the type of person that if I cant see progress, after spending the time, I start to get really angry at the world!.
To be honest I am now just using gut feeling and common sense to figure stuff out. ie stuff that is furtherest back under the dash first. I have had to take some stuff out a couple of times but nothing major.
Even under the dash you can probably put things back in dozens of different sequences. Some are probably easier than others but in the big scheme it probably will only add a couple of hours on even if you pick a less preferred sequence.
Just last night I installed the speedo, which I thought would be the easiest of the guages but as it turned out was actually the hardest with the least hand room. After I had finished I stepped back and started asking myself 'what next'. I looked at the top of the dash and noticed the two large holes that take the studs that come out of the wooden trim. Playing the devils advocate I went over installing these in my head and then went and investigated the hand room left over after all the other stuff I had installed.
Initially I freaked out a bit as looking up from the floor panel you could no longer even see the holes and certainly from that angle no get a hand in to tighten anything up. I freaked out a bit as the thought of pulling all the guages out again wasn't a pleasing one. Went away had a good cup of joe and came back with a cool head. Looked at the problem again and discovered you can reach in through the radio cavity and get your hand up diagonally behind the guages just enough to touch the holes.
I am sure it will be hard, everything is on this car, but still possible with a bit of patience. I am not sure if the dash and wood needs to go on before the guages are installed to meet the 'optimum' install sequence. I may never know if my hand contorsionist trick works to get the dash wood securing nuts back in place. So even though I can give you the benifit of my experience it may not necessarily be an optimum solution.
Another tactic that I have employed to good effect is to categorize all my photos into sections each in thier own folder. Then I copied them all to my smart phone. While I am actually under the dash I can pull it from my pocket and locate the related pictures really quickly. I found that prior to employing this tactic no matter how much I studied the pictures the night before I missed heaps of small queues. Worth its weight in gold.
