Dash progress and mistakes

I spent Friday working on the dash. This ought to have been simple, but in actual fact I made so many errors that it took all day...

Marking up the dash for cutting.

First mistake was using black permanent marker on a white dashboard. After cutting out, I'd stayed just inside the lines with the jigsaw, so I had to spend an hour with the dremel rubbing off the marker. For once, the dremel did a reasonably good job, although there are some off-white bits where the pen smeared.

Cutting the dash out of the scuttle, mistakes two and three.

Mistake two was to cut out the wrong shape. The dash pod is rounded at the bottom corners, but I forgot this when cutting out the curved section, so I'm left with annoying little holes at the bottom corners. I guess I can tidy this up with some polyfiller or something, but it is very irritating to have such a visible mistake.

Mistake number three was less permanent, but took time to correct. I put the dash pod in, then sealed it in with expanding foam while I popped off to buy a hole saw from McKays (mistake number four). I got back, trial fitted the dash, and discovered that the dash pod was at such an angle that it contacted the steering column in such a way that the scuttle sat with an approximately 20mm gap from the chassis...

Fortunately the expanding foam is a good choice for sealing in the dash pod - a few minutes with a screwdriver and I was able to scrape it all out, then pull out the dash pod, and get the jigsaw out again to cut back more of the scuttle. I sealed in the dash with some more foam, and, after it had hardened, it looks like it should all just about fit.

Dash in place and wired in. Some tidying up required.

It looks good in place, although the visibility with the steering wheel attached is not great - the top of the wheel, for me, lines up so it obscures the middle of the dash. Not much I can really do about this. I'll fit some shift lights so I don't need to worry about watching the rev counter, and use the poor visibility of the speedo as my excuse in court.

Finally, I turned to making holes for the switches to go in, but on closer inspection, discovered that the hole saw I'd bought for this purpose requires a mandrel to attach to the drill... so that will have to wait.

The good news: apparently my exhaust should be ready for collection on Monday - looking forward to getting that fitted.