Redesigning the Dashboard

The original dashboard was quite ugly. There were equipment that we didn't want to keep and as it was you could see the mess of wires etc. We wanted to utilize every scrap of space possible and that included making the most of the area around the dashboard and the front area as well as make it look much nicer than it was.

The dash board as it was when we bought the bus

Rob decided that we would redesign the front area with plywood and cover it with vinyl for looks. We kept the angular lines for practicality. He measured and cut the plywood, taking into account the air vents and the accessibility to the clutch fluid so we can top it up as needed. You can see the circle cut in the top of the plywood in the photo above. We used a 6 inch cover plate - generally used for sewer pipes.

Fitting the plywood top.

We painted the plywood, only because it took a while finding a supplier for the vinyl also gave me an idea of what the contrast would look like before going to the effort of the vinyl covering.

The painted dashboard with the clutch fluid access hole

The air vents on top were taken out, repaired and  spray painted black.
Eventually we found a supplier for the vinyl. We ordered a dark hunter green and it duly arrived. 
We glued dense foam (from Clarks Rubber) to the plywood and then glued and stapled the vinyl to the foam after cutting holes for the air vents and clutch cover.

 

The new looking air vents were screwed back in place on top.
We have added the screen for the reversing camera to the clutch cover. We also added a grab handle for getting in and out especially as we can't stop the clock we have to admit we are getting older. (But shush... don't tell anyone I admitted that!)

So all  up we have a great looking dashboard... next blog post is about the area under dashboard!