After completing the switches for the lights and fan, I thought it best to get the dashboard put together.
I had to fill in some of the holes with P40 which I had drilled in the fibreglass dashboard for the original layout using toggle switches. I also decided to move the fan switch closer to the driver and hide the speedometer button behind the steering wheel shroud.
To help prevent the rotary switches from turning, and relying on the securing nut, I bonded on some angle aluminium at the correct angle. There are some notches in the fibreglass, but I wasn't sure how this was going to all work with the padding and leather.
Once the switch locations had been decided, and also the key for the ignition (Far right hand side near the driver's door) I could tidy up the wiring. I had left the factory wires at full length, in addition to the tails that came with the Smith's gauges. This meant there were a lot of excess wires.
I had to extend the ignition wires since I had relocated the key far away, but mostly I needed to shorten everything else. I kept the Smith's connectors, I spliced in the wires by soldering each one and applying heatshrink sleeving to each joint. Once each unit had been completed, a larger piece of heatshrink was used and I hand wrote on this piece identifying what was what.
The fibreglass panel was then covered with 3mm thick Scrim foam - this has a material backing. I fully glued this on using EvoStick.
Once the glue was fully dry, I cut out each opening using a craft knife.
A sneaky install to see how it was going to look
Then comes the leather. This is a bit daunting to ensure you get the tension correct. Rolling the leather out on the bench, we marked out the leather for where we would apply the EvoStick. Timebond is best for this. Only the back edge of the fibreglass panel is glued. The leather is loose on the foam. With the edges glued, the leather was stretched over the panel and parts were trimmed away to allow the leather to curve around.
With the leather now in place, I could start cutting out for the indication lamps.
Then everything else was cut out - I cut multiple slivers for the gauges, I split a circle into 16 segments and cut the leather with a craft knife. This made sure that it was flexible enough for the gauges to pass through.
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| Notice the small label I had made for the rear fog light |
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| Piping glued on around the steering cloumn |
In order to help hold the indication lamps from coming back out from the dash, I put flat rubber washers over them. This adds some extra resistance to the lamp holder and keeps it in place.
Next is the leather cover for the steering wheel surround. The leather was rolled out and marked so I could see where to apply the EvoStick. I lined it up so the joint is in the middle underneath - you can't see it once installed.
The leather needs to be trimmed around each of the stalk locations. All in all a neat job, although the stainless cover is quite tight to go on!
I installed a small bracket underneath the dashboard above the transmission tunnel to house the connectors to the Lambda Sensor Controllers and also the CANEMS ECU. Gender adaptors were bolted to the bracket, with the cables running from the bracket to each controller. I thenn can use my RS-232 to USB adaptor to plug into which ever one I need.
Looking more and more complete!
