The Dash Board
We put the dials back in as we went along so as to keep the leather taught and edged around the dash so the finish would be nice and smooth by turning a hem and sticking it well into the grove ,The most difficult bit to do was around the steering wheel as the leavers are a very close fit to the side and getting between them was a squeze.
But the finished look was very good and we were pleased with our efferts and it had not cost us a fortune.
As we had some Leather left over we thought it would be nice to finish off the look by trimming the dash as it had just had carbon fibre effect sheeting stuck on it when we got the F27 and it wasn't really to our liking so we set about dismantling the dials and wiring so we could get down to the process of doing a nice job on the dash board.
We started with the dash striped and offered up the leather to get some idea how it was going to look, when we were happy that we had got it placed correctly the process off sticking it in place began.
It was decided to start around the dials so we stuck the leather down with some double side tape and marked the leather where the dials should go and carefully cut it so the dials could be pushed through.
As i didn't want to use glue on the dash i opted to use double sided carpet tape and covered the dash with tape then slowly smoothed the leather over the dash and tried not to get any creases as the dash is not flat we expected to have a few problems but it worked quite well.
While we had the dials out it was decided to revamp them as well, After considering whether to buy new ones at quite a high price it was decided that we would have a go at revamping them ourselves, as the trims had been painted black we stripped the paint off to leave a nice chrome effect so it was in keeping with the gear stick trim.
One of the fronts was badly cracked and needed to have the glass replaced, as we didn't know if we could just get the glass we decided to improvise by using the lid off a Cd case after carefully marking it and cutting it we had a new front at minimal cost with just a bit of patience and hard work.
We started with the dash striped and offered up the leather to get some idea how it was going to look, when we were happy that we had got it placed correctly the process off sticking it in place began.
It was decided to start around the dials so we stuck the leather down with some double side tape and marked the leather where the dials should go and carefully cut it so the dials could be pushed through.
As i didn't want to use glue on the dash i opted to use double sided carpet tape and covered the dash with tape then slowly smoothed the leather over the dash and tried not to get any creases as the dash is not flat we expected to have a few problems but it worked quite well.
While we had the dials out it was decided to revamp them as well, After considering whether to buy new ones at quite a high price it was decided that we would have a go at revamping them ourselves, as the trims had been painted black we stripped the paint off to leave a nice chrome effect so it was in keeping with the gear stick trim.
One of the fronts was badly cracked and needed to have the glass replaced, as we didn't know if we could just get the glass we decided to improvise by using the lid off a Cd case after carefully marking it and cutting it we had a new front at minimal cost with just a bit of patience and hard work.
We put the dials back in as we went along so as to keep the leather taught and edged around the dash so the finish would be nice and smooth by turning a hem and sticking it well into the grove ,The most difficult bit to do was around the steering wheel as the leavers are a very close fit to the side and getting between them was a squeze.
But the finished look was very good and we were pleased with our efferts and it had not cost us a fortune.
