Well this is the point at which I make a bad decision and without studying the dashboard too closely, I decided to start building the dashboard. So after fitting and wiring the switches I decided to fit a new cigarette lighter. I managed to buy a suitable replacement for the original, that was missing, and offered it to the hole in the dash, only to find that the hole was too small. I was now faced with the problem, how to make the hole bigger? Now obviously I could try using a hand file, but the bezel was only 1mm wide and I would need to be very accurate. Plus I wanted the hole exactly central to the existing one. So I bought a 24mm Q-Max cutter and then set about making a spacer, to fit the hole in the dash, with a hole in the middle for the cutter bolt to pass through. This spacer then held the cutter exactly in the centre of the hole in the dash. Then with masking tape, to stop the cutter marking the dashboard paint, I cut the hole and it was perfect.
The next job was to renovate the clocks and as soon as I put them on the bench I noticed that I had two clocks with grey faces and one with a black face. The time clock was definitely an odd one out. Well I searched the web for a "grey" clock but could not find one anywhere. But eventually I found a grey faced Rev Counter of the correct size and purchased that. The next job was to strip and clean the speedo and fuel gauge. Removing the bezels and glass was a slow and delicate operation without breaking the glass but the result was excellent and they now look beautiful.
At this point I still hadn't realised the mistakes I was making, but it is visible in this picture. So Now I decided to buy the upper and lower dash pads. I had to wait some time for the top pad to arrive from the USA and the bottom pad came from Germany.
In the mean time I could fit the radio. This is a replica vintage look radio with DAB, USB and Bluetooth with four speaker outputs and a separate feed for a sub speaker.
Well my dashboard pads arrived and as soon as I offered them up to the dashboard my mistake was obvious. The holes at the top left and right on the dashboard were still visible below the pads. Plus more slots on the far right and left. I had mistakenly thought that the pads would cover these holes and I was wrong. I had really wanted to keep the blue painted dash. But now I had no choice. The whole dashboard had to be stripped again and I had to order the wood laminate facia.
So while I waited for the dash facia to arrive, I decided it was time to fit the windscreen. You will have read that I broke the original screen getting it out. So I now had a new screen, new rubber and new chrome trims. Now I have a very good friend who used to work for Autoglass as a fitter. So I asked him if he would help and he came along to the workshop.
As usual, nothing is easy, we managed to get the new rubber around the glass but could not get the chrome trim to fit and after a whole night of trying, we gave up and went home. I spent the next few days reshaping the chrome trims (which come flat) to fit the shape of the screen and my friend returned for another attempt. Surprise surprise, it wouldn't fit on the car. The whole screen and rubber appeared bigger than the aperture. In a final desperate attempt, I found the old, 50 year old, screen rubber and spent a whole day cleaning it up. My friend returned for a third attempt and this time, with the original screen rubber, it fit!
The wood laminate arrived and it was time to start reassembling the dash. With
the laminate stuck in place with contact adhesive, I now had the job of cutting out all of the holes. The larger holes were not too difficult, using a sharp Stanley Knife to carefully cut around the hole. But the switch holes posed a small problem as some of them were not indented on the laminate. I ended up using a small drill from the other side of the dash to find the centre of the holes and then drilling from the front by hand with the correct size drill.
After refitting all of the clocks and switches I could now fit the two new top and bottom pads. I had previously only laid them in place. It was now time to fit them properly. Well the first thing that I discovered was that the captive bolts on the bottom (German) pad were 6mm. No problem. However the bolts on the top (American) pad were imperial and after a lot of searching I discovered that they were 3/16" Whitworth, which of course, I didn't have! This meant a trip to a local Nut and bolt company who fortunately found some and gave them to me (Thank you). Getting the nuts onto these pads is extremely awkward and takes ages to do, but there it is, fitted!
So now a change of direction, as I was looking at how to fit the four loudspeakers for the radio. Now the rear speakers had to go into the rear plastic quarter panel interior trims and these trims were in really bad condition. They had become brittle and had much of the edges broken off and one trim was actually broken in half. I searched for new ones on the web and found that they were really expensive. So I decided to try and repair them. I backed each one with thin aluminium, held in place with epoxy resin and pop rivets. Hopefully, once they are trimmed with vinyl, they will look fine.
Now in order to fit these panels, the hood frame had to be in place first. So it was time to fetch the frame down from the loft and have a go at fitting it. I had previously stripped the frame and had it powder coated. So now was the time to fit it. Well it's really nice to have something go well for a change and the frame fitted easily and even the rear window catch worked correctly.
So next time I'll be reassembling the doors and fitting the engine.
the laminate stuck in place with contact adhesive, I now had the job of cutting out all of the holes. The larger holes were not too difficult, using a sharp Stanley Knife to carefully cut around the hole. But the switch holes posed a small problem as some of them were not indented on the laminate. I ended up using a small drill from the other side of the dash to find the centre of the holes and then drilling from the front by hand with the correct size drill. 
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