A bit of history (part 20) – Some form over function

Whilst getting ready for the big re-assembly job, and in support of my plans to fully re-wire the car, I decided to tick off a couple of cosmetic jobs…namely a nice OEM style install for the new digital dashboard, and how to delete the stock radio system without changing the look of the car (i.e what to do with the aerial).

Matt had done a lovely job of mounting the prior Race Technology dash I had used, but this was long gone having been sold on (I think Peter took the Dash for his Noble, and the laser cut plastic mounting for it had gone to another MR2 owner). I wanted to replicate this type of OEM style look, but of course- in my own way!

The first thing I realised was that with the MoTeC dash I would need external warning lights for indicators, fog lights, main beam, handbrake etc as these are not supported by the dash itself. I also wanted to maintain analogue clocks for fuel level, and boost pressure- digital gauges are great, but for some things I really don’t want to have to read numbers- and I find it far easier to keep an eye on analogue readings with a very quick glance of the eye.

My starting point was a stock set of clocks, which I promptly disassembled. The plan was to fill in the speedo, tacho and boost gauge holes with fiberglass as they were no longer required…I roughed up the back surface of the clocks where I wanted to bond into, and then used glossy cardboard on the front of the clocks with a good layer of wax to make the mold for the fiberglass to form against.

I used a couple layers of gel coat, and then two layers of glass fiber…although it turned out my gel coat was probably passed its use by date, and I had a bit of repair work to do!

A bit of filler, then wet and dry work and I had a finish I was pretty happy with, so on with plastic primer and things were looking pretty sweet...

I then sprayed the unit with a couple layers of high build primer to flat back to a nice smooth, OEM finish before hitting it with with grey primer...time to mount the dash itself: a large hole for the plug, and three mounting holes and we had an initial assembly.

However I did end up down the inevitable rabbit hole of trying to perfect the finish, and just couldn’t seem to achieve the perfectly flat profile I was after- I think it was to do with the chamfered profile of the gauge holes in the original clocks. So in the end (being the perfectionist I am) I broke out another set of OEM clocks, and this time removed the chamfer before repeating the whole process, hoping it would allow the resin to settle fully flush with the surface of the clocks.

After repeating the process as before, although a bit slicker this time (you gotta love the learning curve effect), I pretty much came to the conclusion that the stock clocks are simply not flat! So once again I broke out the filler and skimmed the surface, before flatting back to some kind of finish I was happy with.

Then back onto plastic primer, high build primer, flatting back before a couple layers of grey primer, and finally a couple coats of satin black…add a couple Stack gauges which I'd opened the auxiliary gauge holes out to fit, and we end up with something I was pretty pleased with...not perfect, but you couldn't see the imperfections I was focused on once it was mounted in the dash board, so good enough...

I finished the warning lights off with LEDs, which were quite conveniently mounted by butchering the stock bulb holders, and I hacked up the original plastic bracketry from the OEM clocks to help secure the two Stack gauges in with…this also involved attacking the metal brackets that mount the whole cluster as the new gauges are deeper than I realised...all good fun.

Following all of this we end up with a finished product that I was actually really happy with, and sits really nicely in the stock dashboard- it doesn’t scream “modified”, and I think it looks right at home.

The other side project was a bit of indulgence on my part- as part of the weight saving efforts the whole radio system, including speakers and aerial unit, had gone in the bin- no point in having a radio in a road warrior spec car(!)

However I really didn’t want to get into a full respray at this stage, so properly filling the hole in the rear wing where the aerial had been seated was not yet an option…so time to get creative. To this end I literally hacked off as much of the aerial unit that sits inside the boot as possible, and bonded the remaining parts together with polyester resin before refitting to the car.

The end result is what looks externally like a stock aerial, but with 95% of the weight removed on the inside…an extremely silly exercise, but every few grams saved counts!!

Next up we start back on serious stuff like engines again….no more of this frivolous aesthetic nonsense...