Tidying up the dash a bit

While browsing Ebay recently, I managed to score a cheap oil pressure gauge. This is something I've felt I should fit for a while, as it would be nice to have early warning of low oil pressure, should something go wrong. Unfortunately, there was no space on my dash for it. I wasn't particularly happy with the way the traction control just sort of hung awkwardly off the bottom of the scuttle so figured I'd make a little centre console bit.

Traction control hanging a bit shoddily off the bottom of the scuttle.

After a lot of fiddling around, I ended up with this. It's not perfect (slightly too wide at the bottom) but it's a big improvement.

Oil pressure gauge mounted.

When the sender adapter arrives I'll plumb it into the engine.

Meanwhile, I've also been dismantling the VANOS. The idle is a little bit rough, and I can't find any intake or exhaust leaks to explain this. So I tried unplugging the VANOS while it was idling, and noticed no change in the engine note at all (the VANOS should be adjusting the timing at idle, so normally unplugging it would make the idle get quite a bit rougher), which suggests that it's not doing anything.

Vanos solenoid.

The VANOS seals look OK-ish, and the solenoids all have about the right resistance, and click when I apply 12v to them, so it's not totally clear if they're working or not. I've ordered a replacement set of seals anyway and will see if that makes a difference.