Dash dismantling...

[damienh]

I’m trying to dismantle the dash in order to restore it.

Are there any tricks to A) removing the tiny rusty screws without causing damage. And B) removing the black round painted metal covers from the circular openings for the clocks ? It seems like they are glued in place, but I’m paranoid about causing damage.

Thanks for any tips !

Damien

 

[Markos]

Where are you at so far? You remoce the whole gauge cluster as a unit, then you can remove the black gauge bezels, which I beleive are still soldered to the sheetmetal gauge console backing.

I had to drill out the large grab rail screws on my project car. They came out easily on my parts car.

I have some dashboard removal pics in this thread:
https://e9coupe.com/forum/threads/deconstruction-thread-how-to-part-out-an-e9.21251/

 

[damienh]

Ah ok. So the bezels are soldered to the back plate. That helps.

I’ve got the gauges out, it’s just the black bezels I need to remove, the back plate looks easy enough. I’m sure I’ll see the solders when I remove those circular pads.

Regarding the dash itself, I’ve removed several screws holding the grabrail from underneath, but the heads of several have just disintegrated. I’m struggling to drill them out without damaging the wood, but I’ll persevere.

Thought this would be the easy bit now the dash is removed from the car, but it’s a real pain given the awkward shape and the worry of causing damage to the delicate bits.

Thanks ! I’ll have a look at the link now.

Damien

 

[Markos]

I’ll be honest I am having a hard time visualizing. This is a US spec car correct? The grab rail is face-mounted. There are five screws under the dash also, but not for the grab rail.

Upload some pics of the problem area.

 

[damienh]

Hi, don’t worry, it’s obvious how it comes apart, but it’s just tough to drill out the old rusty screws. Was wondering if I’m missing a trick.

I’m in the UK, it’s the same just flipped. The grabrail has about 8 small screws attaching it to the vinyl covered base, then it’s got one screw at either end attaching it to the curved ply parts. It’s simple, but when the screws are this badly rusted it’s difficult.

Thanks for the gauge console tip though. I’ll be tackling it tonight.

 

[Markos]

Hi, don’t worry, it’s obvious how it comes apart, but it’s just tough to drill out the old rusty screws. Was wondering if I’m missing a trick.

I’m in the UK, it’s the same just flipped. The grabrail has about 8 small screws attaching it to the vinyl covered base, then it’s got one screw at either end attaching it to the curved ply parts. It’s simple, but when the screws are this badly rusted it’s difficult.

Thanks for the gauge console tip though. I’ll be tackling it tonight.

I was just commenting to a member here yesterday about how I don’t know how the wood grab rail fastens. Good to know. Pics would still be great.

One of the things that you will find in my decon thread is that I drilled out a number of screws. Off the top of my head, door handle screws, door jamb screws, and I mentioned the dash screws on the project car already.

When you drill out a screw, you use the smallest bit possible. You want to pop the head off, not the whole screw. Once the head is off you can use needle nose pliers to remove the thread.

However, since you are dealing with wood screws, you may still have a stuck thread embedded in the wood. Alternatively you can drill a small hole in the screw head and use an extractor. One word of caution however, small extractors break with little force.

Try both options and see what works best. I typically go with option 1, and I have broken more extractors than I care to admit.

 

[Rek]

Its nice to see a thread like this where there was no visit to the seventh circle of hell known as removing the dash binnacle on a RHD. Well done on that.

 

[Wes]

I just went through all this on a RHD car.
Happy to give you some help as I found the process differs from LHD.
More os if it's a non AC car.

 

[damienh]

Thanks all. I managed to separate the various parts without too much damage. The worst bit I found was the 3 small divider pieces, as these are glued in. I had to drill a hole underneath to insert something to force them upwards.

Markos - some pictures to show how the grab rail was attached, I can't imagine it's any different on a LHD car.

Some pictures seem to duplicated, no clue how that happened.

Regards,

Damien

 

[paul]

Damien..............the solder on the rear of the instrument cluster I sanded off with 80 grit paper and they just separated from the metal backing plate and they just slid out. I glued them back after restoration. I unfortunately did not remove the bottom part of the dash myself......the mechanic did.....however I totally rebuilt my dash out of teak myself and I am just reassembling it all only today and I have a question myself.....see the pics below. Or any other persons watching this blog..............mine is a LHD German Delivery Car with padded grab rail. Do you have any pics of your dash in place with the grab rail off.

 

[paul]

Just found these in my files (so long since I took this car apart) Does this look similar screw holes as yours on the edge of dash?? Doesn't seem logical to me to have the dash base float up off the metal base. This how my car was originally. BTW if you need pics of my dash rebuild happy to post up.

 

[damienh]

Hi Paul, I’m afraid I don’t know about the gap, I’ve sent the dash away now to be refurbished. Could it be related to the several holes and small pieces of ply, and spongy padding underneath ? Perhaps you’re missing some of the circular slots that possibly hold it all in place ? In case you haven’t put these slots in your new piece, you can see a couple in my picture, but also on the Madeira Concepts website I think they have a good photo of underneath this vinyl shelf because they reproduce it.

 

[paul]

No the base sits down flat onto steel......holes match the timber rounds ok. Its the little metal tags you screw into that sit up from the metal base..............but I have it all sussed now.......its a matter of improving on what was probably normal assembly procedures back in 1972. slack.