In an effort to keep this string alive for ever and
ever, I have something else to throw into the mix:
I live in the greater Charlotte area, and every third
person in this town works for a NASCAR team. Despite
my total and complete disdain for that series, living
here does occasionally have its advantages. For
example:
My next-door neighbor happens to be a fabricator for a
NASCAR team, and he's deadly talented. A total
perfectionist. He also kinda digs my MG and is always
chatting with me about it. I discussed this metal
dash conversion problem with him, and it appears he'd
be willing to help me fabricate a metal dash "replica"
out of fiberglass that would bolt right up in place of
the later dashboards. It would use all the same
mounting points as the later dash, but look like an
early dash and accomodate all the early dash gauges
and switches and everything. If all goes well, it
wouldn't require any modification to bolt in.
There would be only two caveats:
1) As I said, it would be fiberglass, but once
painted, it should be pretty much indistinguishable
from an actual metal dash.
2) It would obviously be SLIGHTLY different from the
actual metal dash, because it would have to fit around
a different steering column arrangement and bolt up to
different places and so forth. So it probably
wouldn't be good for concours entrants (although
neither would ANY dashboard conversion). But the
result according to my fabricator buddy (and if you
could see his work, you'd be inclined to believe him)
would be a finished product that looks functionally
identical to an early metal dash.
I say all of this because I want to see if anyone
would be interested in one of these. If we do this,
we have to fabricate the first one by hand (using an
original metal dash as a starting point) and then once
it's perfect, make a mold for the fiberglass final
versions. That would allow us to make a bunch of
them. So if anyone would be interested in such a
piece, let me know.
I don't know exactly what it would cost yet, but he
tells me that with a moderate quantity (say, 50
pieces) it wouldn't be THAT much per unit. The real
bitch-kitty work is the initial fabrication, which
we're willing to take on as a sort of challenge.
The finished piece would come smooth and paint-ready,
but unpainted. So you'd have to finish it with the
wrinkle paint yourself. In thoery, you would change
nothing except the dash, the gauges and the switches.
(Oh, and I guess the center console?) But you'd use
your existing pieces everywhere else. No sheet metal
cutting, no hardware changes.
If anyone would want one of these, let me know and
I'll keep your name and keep you posted on what
happens. We'll do some initial digging into it and
see what it would cost to make the mold and make a
bunch of them.
And at this point, we could do anything we wanted, so
if everyone would prefer to have a metal dash that
accepted the later gauges (or any other functional
changes that would make the conversion potentially
more affordable or appealing for any reason) just
speak up and we'll see where the chips fall.
But at the moment, the goal is to produce something
that looks as identical as possible to the early metal
dash that came from the factory.
Let me know!
=====
Paul Misencik
1971 MGB Vintage Race Project
Huntersville, NC USA
www.sopwithracing.com
Learn the truth at www.misleader.org
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