Dashboard
Recovering the dashboard is relatively straight forward. The material was obtained as part of the 'panels' kit supplied by companies like
Moss, NTG and Brown & Gammons. It's basically a cloth backed plastic that is glued on to the dash. The dash has to be cleaned up and all old
glue removed. If you don't the new covering will highlight every bulge and blemish so its worth getting it right. Also I got myself a supply of
'D' clips from Components Direct. These are used to clip the material over the edges and are very effective at gripping the material and the
metal. This is important when it comes to getting any wrinkles to stay out of the glued material. I suggest the you cover over all apertures at
this stage. I then cut petals in fabric for the main instrument apertures and gently pushed the instrument in. The petals get folded
into the hole and the material stretches into the depression. The material thickness usually makes this a tight fit. If using your
permanent instruments take care to keep them clean. For all the switch holes I cut a small hole and used a nut & bolt and a washer the same
size as the switch 'depression'. Again tightening them up pulls the material into the depression. Obviously its best to not get any glue on
the outer surface. After 24 hours I took all instruments and nuts/bolts/washers off and pop
riveted first a cleaned up centre grill and then bottom trim on and suddenly I had a professional looking dash.
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Before |
After |
I could not resist loosly fitting the instruments etc...
Roof Pillar Rebuild
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Having removed the windscreen and the fabric covering from the inside
area by the windscreen the extent of the rusting was revealed. After extensively poking around with the screwdriver all weak areas were
uncovered. |
All I can say is that this car must have had more water inside than out looking at how bad it was.
It was obvious that these areas would need an extensive and fiddlely rebuild. Obviously it is important that it is carried out properly as it
is a structurally important area holding up the roof. In my case the inner part of the pillar metal pressings was still sound and repairs
were built off this. From my experience with the door post area welding I knew that there was a lot of lead loading around the screen bottom and
I found it extended right up the outside of the pillar. You must remove all this before trying any welding or grinding. If you don't the lead
gives off some seriously dangerous nasty yellow fumes.
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Some pointers on rebuilding the pillar. To get the complex shapes use cardboard to make a
template first. Do your repairs in small sections. The repair in the pictures was achieved using six
pieces. If through rust you have lost the intersection of the roof pillar with the door post the roof pillar line
goes straight down in the vertical to intersect with it with no changes in direction to the left or right. |
| This gives the impression of part being inside and part outside but the edge
of the door post are should be cut/bent to curve inwards. The replacement parts don't usually do this. The inner edge should enable a
neat piece to fitted to the edge of the soft top screen bracket. |
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The door should be refitted (for the 50th time ) to check that it clears the pillar bottom edges. The rest is relatively
straight forward making new screen rubber edges and shaping pieces to match sound metal (yes there will be some).
An interesting point is that there appears to be a double flange at the front. The front flange in this case is not used as a lip
like the back one but just as an edge for the front of the rubber. In theory it should have a similar
appearance to the roof edge above but it was easier to leave as a lip. This explains the strange transition area
from the 'solid' lower pillars to this front lip that had me scatching my head for a while.
Next is to repeat the process on the far side and grind it all smooth.
  
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