Rootes gave Alpines a plastic, vinyl covered plank for a dash, very utilitarian, but Alphie is getting the Full Monty, burled oak, dee-luxe edition! (“Padded” dash like “padded” resume… Weak I know, think of it as a dad joke.)
There’s a lot of work and money in Alphie’s dash, more than is
reasonable, but the dash is one of the eye-catching things about Alpines, and I
want Alphie’s to pop. (I won’t know if
all the gauges work until I power it up the first time – cross all your
digits.)
Repadding the Dash
The upper dash pad has tons-o-steps, but none are that hard,
BUT if you screw up a step, it’s bloody hard to fix it, so take your time and
test fit everything!
TIP: I took the liberty of rewriting the dash pad
instructions that Sunbeam Specialties sent – I felt they needed an update. They are in the More Stuff column on the
right on the blog’s home page.
TEST FIT!
I got a Sunbeam Specialties dash pad – it’s awesome! Fits with very little modifications. BUT having said that, the first thing you do is lay it out on the metal dash and check that the windscreen (windshield for us Yanks) holes etc. line up, check the fit under the lip at the rear of the dash. Stare long at hard at it – trim anything that needs it and make sure everything is ready. I even ran a tap through the threads for the vents to be sure everything was GO.
Practice the installation steps because once you get glue
involved; thangs get serious and sticky with glue!
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TEST FIT Everything! The defroster vents, the dash pad, don't leave anything out! |
Glue it!
Sunbeam Specialties’ instructions recommend DAP Weldwood
contact cement. Follow the instructions
and remember, it doesn’t dry instantly, but you don’t get much time to move the
pad around once you apply the glue. Get
it as close as you can before you stick it to the metal.
I installed the defroster plates and cleared/drilled the holes
for the tonneau cover per the instructions.
It will be nearly impossible to find the holes after the dash is glued down if you don’t drill
through the bottom layer of dash sheet metal before getting gluey. By drilling the holes through, you only need
to insert an ice pick up from under the dash to locate the stud holes.
I did not poke holes in the dash pad for the tonneau cover studs
until I decide if I want to install a tonneau cover – I probably will, but I’m keeping
options open for now.
Sand Bag it
How to place even pressure on the dash pad while the contact
cement is curing was a puzzle. During
the practice-the-steps phase, I filled several resealable plastic bags with
sand. They apply even pressure in all
the curves and prevent air gaps where the pad didn’t stick to the metal. And you can pile on as many as you need.
I forgot to take photos of the sand bags in action – sorry.
For more blow-by-blow steps, see the Dash Pad
Installation Instructions in the More Stuff column on The Alpine Project’s
blog home page.
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The corners require some axious cutting - see the instructions! |
I assembled the windscreen – a blog page coming to show that
– and temporarily installed it on Alphie.
I will permanently install it once I have adjusted it to match the
quarter windows on the doors. Assembling
the doors and adjusting the windscreen to them will also be in an upcoming blog
page.
Repadding the Lower Dash Pad
Got the vinyl from a local box store, the foam from Sunbeam
Specialties, I bead-blasted and painted the steel bracket that goes under the
dash, now all I needed to do was glue it all together.
First, I laid out the old vinyl to get a rough pattern for
the new vinyl. I cut it with some
generous margins – you can cut off more later, but you can’t glue any back on!
The sticky part (pun very much intended) was clamping the
glued vinyl to the metal without smushing the foam. The first side was easy. I glued the vinyl down and got clampy with
several spring clamps, using paint stirrers to prevent smushing the foam.
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Some pics of the gluing the first side process |
The second side was a bit trickier. I couldn't use the paint stirrer trick again
because I had to pull the vinyl tight to remove all the wrinkles…
So, what sticks to metal and doesn’t need clamps? Magnets!
Off to Lowes for a bunch of magnets.
Pulled the wrinkles out, glued the vinyl and lined the bracket with
magnets. Bob is indeed your uncle!
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Second side gluing with magnets! Getting the wrinkles out was tedious and time consuming - keep your hands clean! |
Next, I glued new vinyl to the little U-shaped piece that
goes under the steering column and the grab bar piece for inside the glove box.
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All the parts ready for assembly |
Fitting the Glove Box Surround
I bought a kind of one-size-fits-all version of a
Tiger/Alpine burled wood dash, and I have had to modify it a couple of times –
like when I routed out indents so that the switches would fit because the wood
was too thick.
Fitting the glove box required similar machinations (vocab
word for this page). The
one-size-fits-all dash didn’t have holes for the glove box surround. To accurately locate them, I made a file folder
template using the old plastic dash and with some staring while holding the surround up to
the wood dash, I eventually felt about 80% sure I had them right –
I’m never 100% - then I went after it with a hand-held drill, always a nerve
wracker!
You would hope that would be that, but when has it ever been just “that”? The glove box surround was originally held by infuriating little one-way metal clippy thingamajigs that grip the bare posts on the surround. Trying to remove those little @$#&*’s is how I broke Alphie’s original surround. (The one you see in the pics cost WAY too much from eBay.) Anyhoo…
The surround’s post stuck through the new holes and the
placement was spot on (yeah, I was more surprised than anyone) but not far
enough for the speed nuts (i.e. little nuts that create their own threads) to
get a bite on the surround’s posts. So,
I retrieved the drill and added a Forstner bit for another nerve-wracking assault
on Alphie’s gorgeous dash. I got it done
though.
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Holes located, drilled, and Forstnered with the speed nuts installed |
That took care of the left side of the glove box surround,
but the right side remained completely untethered and easily broken!
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My shed-made bracket and glove box installed (Yeah, I see the rust - I'll get to it!) |
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The full Monty! |
As I mentioned, I have more to blog, but at this point in Alphie's resurection, I have many balls in the air because many steps required other steps to be started. Thanks for your patience.
It's so much fun now because with every step, Alphie looks more like a brand new Sunbeam Alpine!