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Wooden board
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The basic board is built from 12mm weatherproof ply. The first challenge was to find a flat piece in my local B&Q. After pulling about eight or
nine sheets out from the rack and inspecting them I finally found one that wasn't propellor shaped.
Before parting with my original dash, I made a template on some lining wallpaper, and this was duly placed onto the plywood so that I could cut it out.
The jig saw cuts on the up stroke, so the template was placed on the rear. At this point I cut the top line which fits behind the body
tub flange and the holes for the steering wheel and turn switch only. I
left the bottom line so that I could ensure a perfect alignment with the body.
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The hole for the steering column was quite large and I didn't have a cutter large enough, so it was cut with a jig saw. When
cutting circular holes with a jig saw it is very dificult to get a perfect circle so to hide imperfections a finisher was needed.
Looking around the house for inspiration I happend across a small tuperware type container which was suitable for the job. I went to my local Tesco,
and bought one a similar size (the idea being to use the old one), but to my delight the new one was even more suitable. I cut it down to make a collar,
which will be sprayed and fitted in the hole later. I still need to find a finisher for the indicator slot though...
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The board was clamped in place along with the metal trim former and drilled through all three pieces. Each time one hole was drilled I inserted the
bolt and nut so that nothing slipped out of place while making all the fixings. Once everything was fitted, I was able to mark out the bottom line and
also to mark the body tub edging on the face of the ply to ensure I didn't fit anything that would foul the fixings.
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The holes were cut for the following items:
- Speedo and trip control
- Rev counter
- Fuel gauge
- Temp Gauge
- Oil pressure gauge
- Clock
- Switches
- Warning lights
- Heater controls and Choke
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The heater controls have a flat on the fixing point and a couple of locating pegs which would not hold satisfactorily in the plywood,
so two small steel plates were cut out for fixings, and clearance holes were drilled in the dash.
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The trip control fixing is too short to fix through the plywood. In this case a
small steel plate was cut and sunk into the front of the dash and a clearance hole drilled behind it. The plate will be hidden when the dash is veneered.
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Switches
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I used rocker switches which look neat when they are ganged together and also should hopefully present no problems for the SVA test.
The switches are ganged into two sets, no real reason for this other than to break up the line of switches and to also group essential
and non-essential switches together.
The switches are:
- Interior light
- Klaxon
- Emergrency fan override
- Hazard flashers
- Blower
- Wipers
- Washers
- Overdrive
- Lights
- Fog Lights
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Warning Lights
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To make the warning lights I cut a long slot in the dashboard and inserted a number of short lengths of square section plastic tube.
An aluminium plate was cut which screws onto the back of the dashboard and this is drilled behind each tube to take a small grommet which holds an LED.
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The icons for the warning lights were drawn in paintshop pro on my computer and printed onto a transparent film. At this stage the
idea is to fit them in front of the strip, although I'm still experimenting to get the colours bright enough
(they look a bit drapb at the moment).
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