Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Thanks guys for all the great suggestions! I'll look at all your links later, but it sounds like plenty of great ideas to follow which will make everything work well when it all goes back together, and that's my goal.

Last night I attacked the dashboard disassembly. I opened a tasty beer, put on a two-hour recording from Mark Knopfler's most recent tour, put the dash on the kitchen table and dug in. Labeled the bejeezus out of everything got it all separated. The wiring was pretty easy to get loose, the indicator lamps in the two big gauges were stuck firmly in place and took quite a bit of careful cajoling to get loose without breaking the plastic holders but did eventually come free. Getting the crash pad off the wood took some doing, as it was stuck on with a lot of really funny brown contact-cement or something. But with a putty-knife and a lot of determination, I managed to detach it without damaging it.

I haven't given much thought yet to electrical system upgrades, but some fuses sound like a great idea as so far I've only found two fuses in the entire car!

This afternoon I'm going to go see a wood-specialist about a nice piece of veneer to glue on.

Pics coming in subsequent posts...

Great Veg.

My car was the two fuse Federal variant as well, so the circuit configurations in your car should be identical. I found the Federal wiring diagram (the one that is shown more as a loom layout diagram with numbers for the wire colours, rather than the classic schematic diagrams with wire colours in letter abbreviations) followed my car exactly. It sometimes took a bit of head scratching to figure out the exact wire connections, so feel free to ask if you get lost on a detail. I also had the odd difficulty with making out the correct wire colours due to fading, but once I figured out the wire colour it matched the diagram perfectly.

Stu

A good evening on the kitchen table.

Lots of empty holes.

Not in bad shape for the most part.

Old veneer will get stripped soon.

Organisation is your friend!

The Veg wrote:
This afternoon I'm going to go see a wood-specialist about a nice piece of veneer to glue on.

Try and make sure your specialist knows how about the moisture content of your veneer. If it's too dry, it will suck out any moisture immediately from your wood glue This will cause it to wrinkle up like an old prune. Some say soak it in a bath, others say steam it. I say, ask your wood-specialist

Sorry about the lack of recent updates- I had a few days suffering with a nasty bug that's going around, plus just being really busy with other things...but I've made some more progress and have a few more pictures!

Here's the old veneer after removal:


The dashboard after scraping and sanding:


Figuring out which way to go for visual effect:


After gluing, holes being cut-out:


Holes all cut:


The next step is applying a finish; that should commence in a few days. I ordered some special marine-varnish that should work a treat on this. I also ordered a set of the reproduction labels for all the switches, as well as new rubber gaskets for the gauges. Once the finishing is all done, the dashboard assembly will happen. In the meantime I'll be working on cleaning-up all the electrical contacts and connectors. Have any of you attempted dis-assembling any of the dash switches to clean their insides? Worth trying, or should I just squirt cleaner into them and pray?

They can be taken apart for cleaning,the tabs have a limited number of "bends" before failing but look out for the spring loaded projectiles firing across the room...

P.S. did a refurb recently and used the ignition switch as was....didn't last too long,was full of verdigris with the result that the starter solenoid and hence the starter was permanently operating.

John

Edit. Just noticed you have the " safety" switches....have not taken those apart,but the same should apply.

Hi All

I'm new to tis site and as I'm in the process of restoring my +2 after having garaged it for 25 years I was wondering if someone could help me out with instructions on the best way to remove the dash?

Thanks in advance for any help

for an early +2, with ford style column, probably the same on later cars....
centre console has to come out to get to the lower bolts.. usually means the rear seats have to come out ( yes really).
eyeball vents twist 90degrees, pull forward and remove tape from the ducting.
many cars have dashpad stapled to the dash, this means you have to remove the demister vents. couple of screws in each, just tricky if the screen is in.
remove any trim from the sides of the heater, you can disconnect heater cables then.
you'll have to reach up behind dash and release the steering column bracket on the ford its easier to remove the binnacle.
probably have to remove the speedo from behind.
should be a bracket at each lower edge of dash that is also attached to the interior light switches that the door operate. remove the two nuts on each or unscrew the switch.
outer, upper screws may not have captive nuts so a pain to get to.
inner, upper screws go into bobbins so should come out ok.
throttle [edit - I meant Choke] and bonnet release cables need to be dealt with.
you then have the washer pump, headlamp vacuum tubes and a lot of wiring to deal with.
wiring loom connectors should be on lhs by heater.
LABEL and photo everything.
hopefully not missed too much. I'm currently putting my dash in .... so might come across other tips

+1 For labeling everything! MOST of the wires join to the same colour but not all do. You really seriously want to label the ever-loving snot out of everything and then label it some more.

Also the old bullet-connectors are probably corroded together. Pull hard enough and you'll pull the wires out of them. That's OK because before re-installing the dashboard you'll want to change to multi-pin plugs anyway.

Many thanks for the advice and instructions, it will be a great help
John

Get a labelling machine then label every wire.



Here's my thread on dashboard replacement.

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=45118