1987 3.2 Carrera Backdate project - Sladeys hotrod

[sladey]

Pretty pleased so far



I know the hazard switch is closer to the light switch than the light switch is to the ignition switch - but it’s half way across the gap I had available. Also pleased with the ignition surround.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

Then I decided to try and cover the knee pad


The main part is fine but the ends are tricky - without cutting it you end up having to do too much stretching


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

LIke this




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

This was about as good as I can get it.


I’m not happy with it but it will do for now. I’ll put a want ad out there for black knee pads and pop those in instead when I get them


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

In spite of the wrinkles it doesn’t look too bad in place




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

Now onto the other side of the dash. First thing to tackle is the radio. I bought a broken blaupunkt radio that has the look I want.

I really only want this for the look but ideally I’d like the on/off switch to work so I can connect that into the power cable for my amp.

I therefore started taking off everything I didn’t need



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

Leaving a cut down ( and therefore lighter) version



I just need to get the on/off switch connected up and all will be good. I’ve found how to do that but unfortunately the switch itself seems to be temperamental


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[Gary71]

Looks great Mark, Nice idea using the radio on/off. My amp uses the ignition switch live so it’s on all the time, but that’s a neat solution.

[defianty]

Looks great Mark, Nice idea using the radio on/off. My amp uses the ignition switch live so it’s on all the time, but that’s a neat solution.

Exactly what Gary said. Nice solution Mark. Red dash looks great too.

[sladey]

Thanks guys - I am using the on/off switch on the current version head unit - from memory it was Ian’s idea.

After I’d clear more of the gubbins from the radio


The on/off is on the left hand knob. The switch itself is actually the black unit to the rear of the knob. However there were two metal things between the knob and the switch that were trying to do all sorts of no doubt very clever things.

The problem was that they had become looser and looser over the years, and also the shaft for the on/off had lost whatever was stopping it from sliding out. Eventually I stripped out the switch itself and used some star washers to hold the shaft in place


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

So I ended up with this



No wonderfully pretty but it does the job and holds it in place. I ended up welding that to the radio frame.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

This is it with the switch all wired up





Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

So with a working (!) radio it was time to work on the middle part of the dash. Now this had been causing me a fair bit of worry - mainly because of the heater unit

Prior to starting the dashboard I fixed the wire controls for the up/down direction - this was an absolute bitch of a job as it was hard to get at.

I’d bought an old heater control unit. The controls looks nicer than mine and it had chrome surround (which I wanted) but I really really didn’t want to remove the existing unit.

Given that I didn’t want to remove it, making the dash would be harder, and the chrome surround might be impossible (the surround on earlier cars is a separate piece but on later cars the fascia and surround are one moulding.

I thought about the dash a lot and came up with a plan.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

The long slot means it can slide either side of the heater unit (which I’d loosened and slipped out a bit).

If you remember there are separate thin sheets of steel that slide along the aluminium. My plan was to make on of those, and put it in place and then slide the aluminium strip onto it



I thought I’d got a pic of just one part but I haven’t. Anyway the pic above shows the two part steel strip I made. You wedge one part in by the steering wheel and then slide the alu behind the heart and onto the steel. Then the second steel slides in from the left form the shape you see above


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[sladey]

And in situ




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro