The Dashboard and Instruments

The car came with an un-upholstered dashboard, so I have decided I want it done in a charcoal vinyl.

There is a small upholstery shop here in Mokopane, they had everything I needed.

Armed with thin sponge, the vinyl, contact glue and razor blades I roughly cut out the shape of the dash in sponge and glued that onto the dash. Then I cut out the instrument holes and trimmed the sponge with a razor blade.

Next move was to cut out an identical shape but a little larger, in vinyl. I did not glue the vinyl to the sponge, preferring to just stretch it over and glue it around the edges, behind the dash. You can see the bead stretching over the top of the dash.

As soon as I had enough glued on, I couldn't resist fitting a gauge to see the effect. I carefully cut a hole smaller than the instrument hole so that the gauge clamps the vinyl. The effect looks good! That's the ammeter by the way.

And the final product surprised even me. There is a gap where the speedo should be. The factory supplied me with another rev counter instead. That is going to be swopped out soon. I also have an issue with the dip switch, the action isn't what I'd expect - push to make, push to break. This is a momentary switch which is all wrong. Tomorrow I am going to try connect up what I can.