Manky's Pop.

[Manky Monkey]

And he suggested this -bearing in mind the steel plate will be painted black, same as the dash of course.
Any good?

[Clive]

Either look so much better in my opinion Andy, but it's your motor!

[Manky Monkey]

You is a forum member & as such, your opinion matters to me matey. Loony was all set to fibreglass up the ignition hole & drill a smaller one for the switch, but I don't quite trust 'glass for high usage areas like that -I'd rather it was mounted in a metal plate. Think I'll go with the larger one, that encircles the speedo.
We tacked the air venty flap thing in it's final place on the bulkhead today, connected the hoses up & tested it with an air-line. Hurrah! It works.
I picked up a couple of door knobs from "Homebase" this morning, about 2 quid each. If you've ever doubted the strength of powder-coating, they were coated beige & it took me the best part of the morning to scrape & sand the coating off them. I'd assumed they were aluminium but they're steel, so now we'll have to clear lacquer them so they don't rust.
I drilled the first one & tapped an M6 thread into it & screwed in a 6mm bolt. Then drilled & tapped the end of the flappy thing operating rod & screwed the knob on.

[Manky Monkey]

Hooked back up to the vent, it looks like this.

[Manky Monkey]

Pull the knob out    & the flap opens. Push it in & it snaps shut again. I'm actually quite suprised it all works, but it does. The flap has a sprung steel strip to hold it open, so needs a hard push on the knob to shut it. Also, because of the movement of the operating arm, the knob pulls out & slightly downwards from the dash when you open it, but that can't really be helped. I'll add a metal locating strap behind the dash with a guide tube for the rod to pass through, which will help a bit, plus a rubber grommet around the hole in the dash.
The second knob will replace the plastic one on the end of the choke cable, so we have a matched pair on the dash, one either side of the ignition.

[poprodder]

knob out, flap open!!!! my word!!!!

can you not glass up hole but have a washer on other side?

[Manky Monkey]

Yeah, but I actually quite like that covering plate now, so will go with that I think. Loony reckons it should be full of hotrod holes, but he'd pepper the whole car with 'em if he had his way. There's a second disc on the back of the ignition bit of the dash already.

[triker_Chewie]

And he suggested this -bearing in mind the steel plate will be painted black, same as the dash of course.
Any good?

do that

[BikerGran]

My vote goes to Loony's plate too!

[poprodder]

x2.

don't go much on your paint job on that dash andy!!!

[hunter]

Naa wrong color.

[Manky Monkey]

Oh. Not keen on the abstract paint look then?
I picked up the dash second hand at the NSRA swapmeet in Essex at least a year ago, maybe two. I originally bought a lovely Bakalite one from a Ford Prefect, complete with all it's original gauges, but decided it looked too posh for a truck, (Bakalite's a sort of early plastic, usually brown & has a grain in it like wood). I wanted the dash to be black anyway, so the fibreglass one's better suited for the job. Looks like someone's spilt a tin of red oxide primer on it at some point.
Just as well you lot like Loony's suggestion, as I spent all afternoon, drilling, filing & grinding it from a chunk of 3mm steel plate.
First I made a paper template, then drew around it onto the steel with a Tippex marker pen, then drilled a series of holes around the outside of the gauge hole, ("chain drilling"), before knocking the centre out & finishing off with a file.
The speedo was another swapmeet buy. 10 quid. Possibly Morris Oxford according to the seller. New old stock -it's never been used with only one test mile on the clock. I liked it cos it's chunky & simple -like me. It was missing it's fuel gauge unit but we've put in one from an old Austin Mini speedo I had, which was an exact match. We plan to put the truck through the test with an old Reliant fuel tank under the pick-up bed, then will swap it for a cylindrical Pop tank mounted in the bed later, so won't bother calibrating the fuel gauge till then.   

[Manky Monkey]

It's a Smith's gauge, which is handy cos they can be recalibrated. We'll need to get that done so it reads correctly with the wheel size we're using. Normally an adaptor would be fitted on the drive cable to speed up or slow down the drive as required, but Smiths gauges are rebuildable, with different sized internal cogs. There are 3 warning lights set into the face of the speedo, for oil, ignition & indicators. We'll also need one for the high beam & one for the brake test button. I'll probably put those in the 2 remaining switch holes near the top of the dash. I've also got 4 Lucas flick switches to fit. They'll go in a line along the fluted centre strip, behind the steering wheel.
We started scraping off the thick red oxide with a razor blade & sanding the black paint back to it's original white gel coat. The top of the new gauge plate stands slightly proud of the curved dash top so rather than trying to bend the plate, we'll weld a small lip on it. Reminds me of the later 100e Ford Pops. Their headlight surrounds were a similar shape.
Now we're thinking it'd look great chrome plated -see what you lot have done!

[Manky Monkey]

The grey plastic windscreen demister tubes hooked up to the vents above the dash & the outside air intake.

[SteveRedd]

I think the plate works well too, it's all coming togther now Andy