Has anyone come up with a successful way of securing the instrument and switch panel to the dashboard without relying on a couple of screws through a thin bit of GRP into a slightly thicker bit of GRP? The regular pushing, pulling and flicking of switches and knobs obviously had a detrimental effect on the original design with the locating holes on my instrument panel having been enlarged over time to the extent that the panel was very loose in the dash. I'm intending to take up Nigel's suggestion of moving the choke knob to the dashboard as it's probably the main culprit in causing the instrument panel to become loose but I feel there must be a better way of keeping the panel in place.
Incidentally, I've now covered the dashboard in leather effect vinyl wrap and feel reasonably pleased with the result. The leather grain effect isn't as pronounced as I'd have liked it to be but I'll post pics of the process I went through soon and await the comments, good and bad.
You can add a washer front and back to reinforce the GRP, and if you wipe it in some setting araldite as you cinch it up it won't rattle.
I used loads of Ali ones on the Warwick, much better than self-tappers, especially on anything that needs to come on and off repeatedly (like dashboards, grille, floor, etc)
They only seem to come in nasty metric threads tho.
Frank, I'm guessing you're referring to a method of attaching the dashboard to the chassis crossmember? I'm asking about a means of attaching the instrument panel to the dashboard. Can't work out how rivnuts would work for that? Am I being dim?
I've used aluminium ones anywhere something mounts into GRP, where a self tapper (parker-kaylon) would have originally been used.
So trim panels, heater boxes, grille, dashboard, all over. It means that all this stuff is removable, the holes line up, and the fixing looks original.
If the GRP is really scabby add a backing washer to the rivnut, and wipe the circumference with some 12 hour araldite to stop it rattling.
You can use steel ones but they are harder to do up, and will rust.
Bonus: when you are trying to get that 5p out of the bottom of the door, you won't gash your hand on the pointy screws!
Still got plenty left over from my Locost 7 buildng days, Frank but was thinking about using some sort of blind fixing in the way that modern ICE units are fixed in place.
Not sure how you'd get that to work, with the clocks in it'll be heavy, and there's not much to fix it to!
While you're at it, it's worth adding an extra 300mm to the electrical harness here so that you can lay the dash on your lap when you are chasing gremlins.
I've always wanted to go back to my dashboard and do it better. I thought I could mount the temp gauge on a bracket fixed to the back wall of the dash so it could stay there and the bezzle and glass would be fixed tot he dash pod.
that would mean the complete dash pod could be wired to a multi pin block and be "unplugged", speedo and rev counter cables unscrewed, oil pressure gauge undone and the whole dang thing taken out in one....but you know, I never seem to be stuck at home for weeks on end with nothing to do............