Dashboard
Whilst the engine is the powerhouse of the car and obviously very important, I feel that the dashboard is a focal point of the car and is equally important but for different reasons. The appearance of the dash sets the scene for the whole car so we spent a lot of time deciding what we were going to do. The Robin Hood way is to utilise the Sierra dials, this is very practical and obviously helps with the budget but wasn’t going to create the look that we had in mind.
Once we had decided on a centre console design the next thing was to establish the layout of the centre console, then the colour of the dash and thirdly the colour of the dial face and Bezels. Lots of downloading and printing of various dials gave us templates to work to and juggling the paper dials around we finally ended up with our layout. All those years of watching Blue Peter with the sticky back plastic really paid off.
I purchased the dials from Caerbont Automotive Instruments Ltd of Swansea (CAI), very helpful, we were able to select the style, the pointer colour, bezel colour etc ourselves and come up with exactly what we wanted, they are not the cheapest on the market but were the only company that we could find that did all the dials that we had chosen, most did all except the clock, or if they did do the clock it was of a slightly different design and did not match the other dials. As I said not the cheapest but the quality is spot on and the dials accounted for a birthday and Christmas present all in one.
The switches were bought from Rally Design of Whitstable, which included a rocker switch for the hazard warning lights. Therefore I didn’t need the large red button on the top of the Sierra column, this was removed and the resulting hole filled and sprayed over. At this stage I also removed the wiper stalk and filled the hole, I will be operating the wipers from a switch on the centre console.
At this point we had given very little thought as to how we were going to actually construct the framework but eventually we came up with the following solution.
I got some 25mm x 2mm mild steel bar and bent it around a former whilst heating it up with a blow lamp. We used the steel spacer that went between the propshaft and the diff as the former, you could ask what was decided first, the radius and the spacer happened to be the right size, or we found the spacer and decided we would use that radius, a bit of both to be truthful, utilising what is available.
Once we had the steel bent into a horseshoe shape this gave us the frame to construct the sides against. I cut lengths of plywood and then cut slots into them so they would bend into a curve and I then formed them round the horse shoe, clamped each layer into position, filled generously with glue and then mounted the next layer, again filling with glue.
My wife, Liz, has very kindly voluntered to cover the dash in a leather type material, with top stitching to show it at its best.
Having now got the basis for the centre console I turned my attentions to the speedo and Rev counter pod. I intend to mount the speedo and rev counter behind the steering wheel so using a plastic bottle cut in half as a former, I covered the bottle in wire mesh to give it strength and then sprayed it with expanding foam. Once this had set I cut off the excess and then using sand paper formed the pod into the shape I wanted.
You can probably get the idea of what I am trying to achieve from the photos, next job is to sand it a bit more and then position it on the car for the final shaping. The pod will need tapering from the top to meet the dash but the sizing and shape will have to be decided once it is on the car. Also I will probably fit the Sierra steering wheel for the IVA
The choice of which material to use for the fascia for the dash proved to be a bit of a problem. I pictured a metallic grey finish but couldn’t find what I wanted. Then one day I was in Wilkinsons buying some paint and noticed a non stick baking tray which was just the colour I wanted, at only £1.00 each I bought 5, more than I needed, but just in case I made any mistakes.
Cutting the baking trays was very slow and laborious, tin snips curled the edge as the tray was so thin, even scissors didn’t leave a perfect flat edge, so I had to carefully file down to the finished edge. However the finished result made up for the time taken, I bent the bottom edge to form a nice curve from the vertical to the horizontal.
As of July 09
