Dash! You Would Think I'd Be Done By Now!

Dateline - 04/16/2016 - Okay, another day working on the dash.  This weekend was spend getting the drivers side fascia to fit correctly.  This has been a real pain and has required a lot of refitting to make things work.  First, I needed to mount the dash dimmer rheostat and control box.  I knew I wanted to have this between the switches and steering column, but there is a lot of foam there that holds the dash.  So I used a piece of brass tubing to act as an extension and mounted the rheostat using an aluminum bracket.  The control box is mounted using double sided foam tape.  I'm going to print out a knob on my 3D printer to finish this off.

Brass tubing used for dash light rheostat

Rheostat and control box mounted on fascia

Next I mounted the right and center dash panels uses 3M industrial strength re lockable fasteners.  I was thinking of using Velcro, but I thought I would give this a try first.

Next I worked on fitting the left hand dash.  I connected all the wires to the speedo, tach and center control console and tried to get the fascia to fit, but it would not fit well around the ignition lock.  I didn't like the fit and know if I left it, it would bother me, so I peeled back the vinyl and did quite a bit of sanding.  After everything fit, I glued the vinyl back.

Then I had to figure a way to mount the fascia.  I opted for a bolt going through the door jam into the left side of the fascia and a bold going through the center console into the right side.  Seems strong enough.  I epoxied steel tubing into the fascia and center console to add strength.  We will see how long it will go.  I may be revisiting this design choice in the future.

I did figure out how I am going to do the hazard light switch.  I nice piece of brass rod epoxied into the switch and running out to the lower right of steering wheel cover.

Finally, I put the seats back in the car!  Hopefully I will not need to take those buggers out again.  They are a pain.

So, as it stands now, I need to finish the center console face so that I can put that it.  Once that is done, and I re-upholster the steering wheel cover, everything will be in the car!

Still Working On The Dash!

Dateline - 04/10/2016 - Continued to work on the dash this weekend.  I've pretty much buttoned up the wiring and cleaned up the loose ends.  Almost everything is ready to go except the dash light dimmer control and the hazard warning light switch.  I know what I'm going to do with the dimmer control.  I'm going to mount it between the two switches and the steering column on the driver's side fascia.   I need to get some tubing from the hardware store to do that.

What I don't know is the hazard switch, which is part of the turn signal controls.  I'm going to need to do some head scratching to get that to work, but I will!

I also spent some time with the steering column cover (here is a link to when I create it http://leapingv8s.blogspot.com/2012/03/three-months-and-moving-right-along.html).  It's a bit too big and the steering column tightening knob rubs against it.  So I had to peel off the vinyl and sand it down quite a bit.  That's okay though since had some aesthetic issues with that anyway and will make a better one this time.

Finally, I mounted the right had dash.  It has bolts that go into brackets I made in the back and then pushes up into position.  It is held in place with a five inch piece of steel tubing that is pushed through the center console side into the front of the fascia.  You can't see it, but it feel very solid and I think this will hold well.  I also mounted the bottom glove box door.

I had to cut my work effort a bit short on Saturday because I needed to wash and was the XK-8.  First wax of the season and it needed it.  The paint was feeling really dry.  It can use a couple more coats to bring back the silky feel that I like.

I also washed the Van, which needed it badly!  That was a full day by the time I was done.

Still Working on Dash

Dateline - 04/02/2016 - Was only able to work on the car for half a day on Saturday because I had a bunch of yard work that needed to get done.  I get the connectors I had ordered from Amazon and was able to wire the center gauge cluster, although it is not installed yet.  I also worked on the wiring for the Tach and Speedo and cleaned up a little of the wiring behind the driver side dash.  Still have more to do, but pretty close to getting all that bundled up.

I still have a bit more work to do on the center indicator panel.  I need to print out the warning light symbols on decal paper and them on some clear plastic.  I also have to paint the blue plastic to silver.  Lots of odds and ends stuff to take care of.  It all takes time!

Once I get the dash installed, I can work on the center console.  I still need to finish the carbon fiber panel.  After that, it should be matter of installing everything.  most everything is already made up connection wise in the center console, so that may go much quicker.

I may go ahead and put the seats back in the car before I do the center console.  It's a bit of a pain to sit in the car without seats!

More Dash Work

Dateline - 03/26/2016 - Continued to work on the dash this weekend.  My first chore was to rewire the center instrument cluster.  This took about two hours to do but the results are nice. I ordered two connectors to finish up the wiring harness, but they have not come in yet, so I'll do that later.

Center gauge cluster wired together

Next I installed the Tach and Speedo in to the left hand dash and started working on fitting that.  Well, things just did not fit.  Again, the problem with a prototype!  The biggest problem was the bottom facia is just too long.  So, I pulled back the upholstery and grabbed the had saw a cut a section of the middle, right below the steering column.  It took about an hour to cut, sand and glue it all back together, but it worked out well and I was able to pull the loose upholstery up to get it tight again.

I also had to talk the steering column back down again because I had to remove a bracket that sat around the key hole.  The bracket was there originally to hold the piece of black plastic molding that went around the key.  I don't need it anymore and was getting in the way.  But the only way to get it off was to pull the steering column back down to get to the screws.  What a pain!  I was really hoping I would not have to deal with that anymore.  Oh well!

So, once I got that sorted, I was finally able to get the left side of the dash mounted.  Now I needed to make brackets to hold the dash.  My new dash sits about 3/4 of an inch further back then the original dash did, so it does not quite fit against the original dash mounts.  I made two brackets out of aluminium that hold the dash in place. I need to fasten the dash to these brackets, but I don't want them to be too solid so that they can flex a bit, so I think I'm going to use industrial hook-and-loop tape.  I think that will hold it, but still give me the ability to pull the panels without too much effort.

Finally, I put the dash pad, steering column cover and steering wheel lock on and took some pictures.

That was a full nine hour day and I was pretty pooped after I was done.

Dash with fittings from back window

Dash from driver side

Dash from passenger side

What's left?  Well, I still have some under dash wiring to deal with as well as finishing the center warning light cluster before I can mount everything.  Then I can attach the center console.  After that, Seats, and dare I say it, external panels!

Wiring and Dash!

Dateline - 03/20/2016 -  Saturday was consumed with my first bike ride of 2016, so I put time in on Sunday instead.  This weekend was dedicated to the dash.  Before I could do anything, I needed to take care of some wiring issues that I still had outstanding.  I needed to wire in the distributor power as well as the power to the new electrical cooling fans.  I needed power that was coming from the ignition side so I wired it into fuse #1 which is hot with ignition.

After getting that sorted, I needed to install some of the vacuum hoses for the heater/air controls.  This of course was harder then it should have been, but with persistence and a few broken knuckles I got that done.

Next was installing the center gauges in the dash and hooking them up.  Here they are installed without wiring:

Center gauges installed

Center gauges installed (back)

Then I hooked them up and tried to get them into the dash and realized I do not have enough room!  Yikes!  I'm going to need to do something different.  Before going hog wild on re-wiring, I decided to make sure I really understand how the dash is going to fit together, so I started putting in the passenger side of the dash.  This required that I install the pressed board glove box.  I needed to modify this somewhat to give room for the new wiring to the fuse blocks, but fortunately I din't need to do a lot and was able to retain most of the glovebox space.

Original glovebox with slight modification to fit new wiring.

I also installed the glovebox door and air vent. Then I "fitted" the unit in the car.  Of course, it didn't fit correctly, which required that I pull some of the vinyl back and file down some of the fiberglass underneath.  Fiddly work, but better to have things fit! With the dash fitted, I can see that I have a couple of brackets to make, but not a big deal at all.

To fix the center gauge issue, I'm going to need to pre-wire them using the nut/screw connectors provided on the gauges instead of the bayonet type that I originally planned to use.  The plan is to wire in all the gauges, leaving pigtails that I will be able to plug/unplug on the left hand side.  This will allow me to install and remove the dash panel much easier.  Should have thought of this before!  All things you learn with a prototype!

Next week I want to install the drivers side panel to make sure I really understand how all of this fits together.  Once I know that everything is going to fit, I'll start installing braces and screwing things in.  Here are pictures of the dash thus far:

Dash from passenger front door without flash

Dash from passenger front door with flash

Dash back window without flash

Dash back window with flash

Center console installed!

Dateline - 03/12/2016 - I installed the center console this weekend.  I know, that doesn't sound impressive, but really it is!  In order to get it installed, I had to do the following:

• Batten down and seal the transmission tunnel cover
• Tidy up the relays attached to the transmission cover
• Installed the shift cable from the shifter to the transmission.  This required a lot of  hole cutting into the transmission cover since I changed the location of the shifter from where it was at when I started work on the car.
• Install the backup lights and ignition lockout wiring to the switch on the shifter
• Install the left and right foot well vent boxes.  These direct airflow to the driver and passengers feet and sit behind the center console
• Install center console air box control doors (had been removed previously for sandblasting and painting)
• Install the air box into the console
• Install the console into the car
• Install the handbrake lever
• Install the handbrake cable and adjust
• Test fit the tunnel kick panels

So, a lot done but not a lot of pictures to show for it.

Center console installed.  Ignore the ugly upholstery on the end.  I'll clean that up when I do the back.

Next up is the dash!  Yup!  Things are starting to come together nicely!

Finished the Carpets and Headliner

Dateline - 03/05/2016 - This Saturday I finished up the carpets and headliner.  The morning started with finishing the carpets on the passenger side.  I had to install the padding along the transmission tunnel and the driveshaft tunnel.  Once that was installed, I was able to glue in the carpets along transmission tunnel.  I then installed the carpet that sits against the bottom of the back seat.  There is no padding there normally and with the Dynamat on that surface, I think it will be pretty quite.

I also started installing the passenger side door threshold plates.  This required installing the wood (yes wood!) former on the door sill and installing two metal brackets that the plates screw into.  Unfortunately, I didn't have stainless steel screes the correct size to screw the plates down with, so I need to pick up some hardware (surprise!)

Passenger back door threshold plate with wood former

Once I got those installed, I was able to start on the driver's side of the car.  This went much faster because I had already figured out all the trouble spots and the correct sequence to do the work.  Basically a repeat of what I did on the passenger side.  Once I had both sides done, I could install the final piece which fits over the driveshaft tunnel.  This is one piece and had to be installed once everything else was done.

Padding installed on Driver Side

Carpets looking back to front

Carpets looking front to back

After getting the carpets installed, I installed the B-pillar upholstery, the A-pillar kick panel and the fuzzy trim around the doors.  Again, because I had done these on passenger side already, they went in pretty quickly.

A-pillar kick panel

B-pillar upholstery

Drivers side with carpets and upholstery complete

The last piece to install was the head liner piece that goes over the doors and down the C-pillar.  Like the other side, this was fiddly work because I had to make sure the holding pins lined up with the holes in the body.  Tricky work that required pulling the trim away and trying to line things up with my fingers.  I got it eventually and am very pleased with the effect.

Headliner piece over doors installed

I did work on a couple of other trim items.  In the center console there is a heater vent on each side that drops hot air under the front seats to help heat the back of the car.  There are two upholstered metal plates that sit between the vent and the carpets.  I had previously sandblasted and painted these but had not completed the upholstery.  I finished those and you can it in the picture below.

Center console hot air deflector mounted on driveshaft tunnel

The final job of the day was to upholster the upper B-pillar upholstery items.  These consist of a metal plate what was originally padded with a dense foam and covered in headliner material.  I decided to do it a little different.  I cut and glued in a piece of pink foam, sanded it to shape and and then upholstered it with the Burgundy vinyl that I used on the dash pad, door caps and back package shelf.  I was pretty burned out by the time I got those done, so I didn't install them yet.  Once I have them installed, I can install the B-pillar interior lights.

The way things are lining out, it looks like installation of the center console is next!