Working on this project I always try to write my updates in sections as such, however there is always work and other jobs going on in the background… the dashboard being one of them. To create my dash I decided to use nice thick piece of 12mm plywood. I had originally made a template out of hardboard and this was simply transferred onto the plywood and then cut out. I decided to use ply as opposed to sheet metal for a few reasons the main one being it’s much easier to work with in terms of cutting, drilling, filing etc… and the other reason was the ability to bury the heads of the fixing bolts within the wood and give a flush finish.
I covered some of the dash build in the last update so you might have already seen the layout and position of all the switches. In this update I’ll cover it in just a tad more detail for anyone who wants to know, or possibly anyone also building a similar machine.
With the dash cut out and all my gauge and switch positions cut it was time to start trimming the dash in my chosen fabric (black textured leather) my previous blog update tells you about thinning some areas of the plywood with a router bit to allow the switches to penetrate through fully. Most toggle switches can only fit through a 6mm thickness panel at most so a good bit of thinning out was required around the specific areas. You can see here also the three fixing bolts which are just roofing bolts cut through from the front side then filled and sanded flat. The square shank of a roofing bolt will stop it spinning when tightened up with the wing nuts. Each bolt position has a corresponding tab welded onto the dash frame to secure it nicely.
The excitement of sticking the leather on stopped me from taking any other pictures…. Sorry. I simply used spray contact adhesive to bond the fabric to the front, then slowly worked my way around the perimeter pulling tight and stapling into place on the rear (another advantage for using plywood as opposed to metal) then cutting the holes for the toggle switches and slicing the cloth to fit the gauges with a nice sharp stanley knife . This has all been a tad exciting in my opinion and with the steering wheel back on you can really get a feel for how it will look when finished.
Another doff of the cap to the original Spitfire was to retain the gauge green glow, which personally I absolutely love and think it looks tremendous. The issue I faced here was the one gauge (oil pressure) is a retro fit as the spitfire never had an oil pressure gauge and this addition gauge does not have the plastic green filter fitted within the bezel. The speedo and taco also have different bulb holders to the 4 accessory gauges, they have screw in bulbs as opposed to 501 wedge style bulbs. I have managed to find online replacement led units for all the gauges, and the oil pressure gauge now has a green led style bulb to keep it the same shade as the others. The picture here and video below don’t really show the lighting in true form, I presume it’s because of the frame rate and solid state light of the led replacement bulbs over original halogen. I can assure you that in the flesh they all look uniform and bright enough not to be invasive when in use.
I’m really really happy with how this whole dashboard has ended up, I will probably have to drill an additional hole at some point for a choke cable but that will be easy enough when I get to that stage.
I have also received a little present from Paul (a fellow Fiorano owner in the form of the aero screens. Paul went with a different option on his build so sold me his unused screens. I am missing one end bracket (the phallic shaped bracket on the left of the picture) however I can easily make another one from some 2mm polished stainless steel. So fitting all this will probably be my next little update in a week or so… more excitement!!!
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