Dashboard

Those of you that have been following my blog carefully, will understand that my garage is not limited to just the garage. My lounge is simply an extension of my garage but with electricity, warmth, sofas and a telly, for all those small tasks that don't need to be attached to the car.

Toying with the idea of the Mazda instrument cluster, I have decided on a central position as to provide an even look, and also to avoid the steering wheel blocking the view, as many IVA fails I have seen include this....I should be safe.

Having searched high and low for the correct sized holesaws, I settled on drilling a number of holes around the template border and then filing through. This isn't advised but it actually worked really well, no chips or cracks. However, the filing has left some....let's say, non-perfect-circular holes.....nonetheless, I have seen a stainless steel MX5 cluster surround, which I have purchased and sprayed with plastidip (basically a spray on rubber coat, which will peel off if I change my mind).

These are the results:

A plain look, I thought this would look pretty good....it would have done if the holes were decent and in the correct place, that square one at the bottom was a tough one to get anyway.













The stainless steel panel. Looks ok, but the holes would need a proper sorting out first.

And finally black. I think it looks good and goes with the orange nicely (excuse the flash, ruins the colour a bit).

I plan to spray the dashboard under the surround with plastidip too which will blend the surround in as well as looking less tatty....maybe the finished product will look amazing....time will tell. Still need to get some Perspex on order to cover the dials too.