For years the dashboard has held up my build and finishing the interior. When I purchased my Nova it had the mark 2 “swoopy dash”, this was OK but I changed a few things about it and it was cut about to fit various switches and a glove box, then the opportunity came up to purchase a mark 4 dash, so I jumped on it. The mark 4 is a nice looking dash but as I soon found out it wasn’t really designed to have depth to allow you to hide heaters and aircon units beneath it. I tried on many occasions to adapt it, trying to fit face vents etc.. I knew this would take time so I shipped the mark 4 dash to Singapore thinking I would have more time to work on it here. For at least a year I did nothing, and then I made a plenum chamber for the HVAC as seen in earlier posts. However I was never really happy with the face vents, ducting and gauge layouts. So finally I bit the bullet and decided to build a dash myself having been inspired by a member of the Sterling Kit Car Forum’s work on his own dash. Anyway, here is the process I went through : Step 1 : Take a mark 4 dash as the starting point to build the first mold so you ensure the back section of the new dash should fit and where the front of the steering column should be. Make the flanges and then lay the gel coat and fibreglass for each part of the mold (in this case a 5 part mold ) Step 2: Separate the mold from the buck and assess your work, figure out what you need to do differently next time. Step 3: Lay the gel coat and fibreglass in your new mold Step 4: Pull the part from the mold Step 5: Acquire a donor dash to give you starting point for the new design, preferably one narrow enough that needs minimal cutting and reshaping. Step 6: Cut the donor dash and blend with the rear section of a dash you know that fits the car (in my case the mark 4). This is achieved with expandable foam, filler and fibreglass. The process involved and awful lot of shaping and sanding which I hate. Step 7: Dash surgery, hack the dash as necessary to move parts to the optimum position for a Nova. In my case moving the centre section to the left and reshaping the leg area to enable me to push the clutch pedal and have space for my knees (all this is in theory as I don’t have my car here to check the fit! So fingers and toes crossed on this one when I finally do a trial fit) Step 8: Have the dash painted by a professional (i.e. not me) to get the best finish possible for the mold. I learnt from the first stage that the mold doesn’t miraculously look better than the part its taken from, so there are no short cuts here. Step 9: Start making the final mold, again a multi part mold which in this case was 6 separate parts to ensure I could release the part from the mold. Step 10: Release the mold from the buck and fill any areas where the gel coat broke through. Several places needed filling in my case due to my poor fibreglass skills. These were filled with candle wax as the easiest fix as it was a onetime mold. In my case the buck didn’t survive so well when the mold was pulled, not enough PVA. Step 11: Prepare the new mold (bolt together, candle wax on the join lines, Release Wax and PVA) and start laying the Gel Coat and fibreglass layers Step 12: Pop the final dash from the mold and cross your fingers it releases and is in reasonable shape. Step 13: Sand off the mold flash lines from the part and cut out the blanking panels being careful to retain the sections required for the OEM inserts to plug into. Hey Presto after many months of work and hundreds of man hours the new dash is ready for transportation to the UK and if it fits then covering in Alcantara cloth. And the proof of the pudding as they say....."It Fitted!"
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David SkinnerI have been living in Singapore since 1998 and I only get to go back to the UK to work on my kit car once or twice a year, so as you can imagine progress has been slow. This blog chronicles the various jobs I do on the car each trip Archives
November 2018
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