Removing The Dashboard

[taz 24]

As its another glorious Sunday, not! Thought I would check and replace some of the warning light cluster bulbs on my S1. I checked the Bible but is does not go into any great detail on removing the Dash. Has anyone done this before and if so where do you start? I've removed the drivers seat and steering wheel, got underneath the dash but cannot see any type of mountings. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[gf350]

If it's the same as my s2 there is a bolt on the bottom edge (passenger side near the centre console) of the dashboard connected by a metal bar to the body, a screw on the side (drivers side seen when door open), and (I think 2) bolts at the top edge which are quite hard to get at as ther are near the vents (somewhere around a quarter of the way accross the dashboard in) to which the dashboard metal mounts slide into and are clamped by the bolts.
You will need to lower the steering column as far as it goes.
I had a go at taking mine out to see what was behind it but gave up so this list might not be all of them.
GF.

[wedg1e]

You could always ask Gary Glitter for help, if you haven't got hands like a paedophile yourself...... ;-D

Ian

[shpub]

As described in the bible. Not much detail cos there is little to it. Leave the dash in place. Pull the wood veneer bit off the instrument panel it is push fit. This reveals the panel itself which will be rivetted in place. Drill out rivets and the panel will come forward to reveal everything.

Steve

[gf350]

quote:
As described in the bible. Not much detail cos there is little to it. Leave the dash in place. Pull the wood veneer bit off the instrument panel it is push fit. This reveals the panel itself which will be rivetted in place. Drill out rivets and the panel will come forward to reveal everything.

Steve

Yes do it that way! I felt I would have been able to get it off it was the putting it back again that worried me.
Thanks for the tip Steve I wanted to get the metal bit out to paint it as it does not seem to have any on it at the moment and I didn't think of that DOH!
I also noticed that the metal frame behind the seats which bolts to the outriggers and holds the seatbelts also seems to have missed the paint.
Did someone expect it to be dry in there? Fairplay though it does look pretty good with virtually no rust at all so I suppose they knew what they were doing.
GF.

[wedg1e]

Errr... I think he said it's a Series 1, in which case it'll have the solid wood instrument panel.
On my S1, you had to take the whole dash out to gain access to the nuts that secured the wood panel to the dash. Once that was out, you could separate the wood and steel panels from each other to fiddle with the instrumnts. A right prat on, and presumably the reason the later cars are different.
Taz24: you may find the dash is only held by 2 nuts!
Lie on your back in the driver's footwell and you will see one of them right at the top, behind the instruments.
The other is in a similar place, but above the glovebox. You can't gt at it through the glovebox though.
All you need to do is slacken them a few turns and the dash should just pull away. The speedo cable will prevent it from coming far, so you need to get in and disconnect that.

Hope this helps..... the real fun part is putting it all back together!

Ian

[taz 24]

Thanks for your help lads, I've been putting this off since buying the car now I've got no excuses! I'll have another bash at it in the week and let you know which method worked. Typical, just got the old girl in bits and the bleeding sun came out, nay mind eh......