MadaboutKitcars

Hi Steve,

It was just the check straps, they had been shortened a bit too much so I sourced another set and fitted them.

Evening all back home safe and sound , a quick message then on to the Peroni , i had decided to buy one of the SWB dashes that Richard at Nubodi has produced so was going to call in on the way north , but on the way there i had some negative financial news and decided now was not the time to buy one .Anyway i carried on to advise Richard that i would no longer be buying a dash , he had one with the instruments fitted (as per the Number 7 car build) to show and it really does look the part , thanks Geoff .

Negative financial news .....yep we've all been there

Must admit the dash is "the" finishing touch now by the looks of it

Morning the following picture is the dash that Richard showed me yesterday



Forgot to mention in my post yesterday evening how good the bodywork looks , good enough that the other half is impressed!!!!! Geoff .

All 3 cars look superb but the rear screen on 69 VPG really is a fantastic finishing touch.
I wonder if Lancelot Link could make them as he is already making a double mould for his headlights. Or might the company that makes them be able to offer them at a more reasonable price to Tribute? I'm sure he can't sell many a year but that could change if they were offered by Tribute. Just a small adjustment to the original mould, I'm sure Chris could do it in a weekend!
Is it just the edges of the rear screen that are curved?

Hi Steve,

It is quite a bit involved to get it to fit, it involves moving the boot lid hinges down, this has a knock on effect that means the boot lid wont open as far as a standard one.

Also the rear parcel shelf needs to be altered, finally you would have to buy a genuine screen to take a mould from, they are North of £600 if my memory serves me correctly.

The MGB one is fit for purpose, those screens are still available as they made plenty of them , I agree they look a bit lost on the rear of the car but that is just my opinion, plenty of guys happy enough with them.


Jeff.

Geoff,

Is the £350.00 price including the gauges ? or are they on top ? if so do you know the total cost including gauges ?

Jeff.

I do love an optimist!!

Afternoon the price for the gauges is £600 , Geoff .

Ouch !! so fibreglass only is £350 ? blimey !! makes my under £50 356 dashes a bit too cheap then !!

The dashboards are pretty though , Chris missed a trick not buying those moulds from the customer who subsequently offered them to Nubodi , in my opinion ...

So that where they came from ....I'd say a missed opportunity there

Ive got my car in at Nubodi for a complete dash conversion. Ive seen one nearly finished in Kevm's car and they look totally amazing. In comparison to the DNA offering at £960 +VAT for clock set and £1500 + VAT for dash and panels it's a rockin bargain. Ive seen both offerings and are equal quality.

Rich says though, the moulds they got did not fit at all and so they had to make their own. Also he asked me to say the No.7 project was conceived over 18 months ago and it was only 6 months ago he found out about the Automirage car after all the parts and paint has been bought. It worked out well though as automirages are five times the price and builds 100k+.

The N0.7 car looks even better in the flesh, which shows what is possible, Rich says they have a four car stand at Stoneleigh.

casamolino - Hi Geoff, it was a brave call to get the car re-worked after the initial painting.

But it looks amazing and I am sure you agree it was worth the effort.

Finally, I hope the negative financial news isn't too serious.

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Jeff H - Your workmanship really is top class.

I've added a few of the 250 SWB "Family Photos" to the Useful Links tread

Can I just ask what is the difference between the "polyester primer" and the "high build primer"?

Cheers, Paul.

Paul,

The polyester is a spray filler, massive build properties and perfect for fiberglass and filler repairs.

2K high build is solvent based and can lead to sinkage and pulling around repairs if they are not feathered out properly.

I think their will be markets for both cars,

The Automirage is as we all know a dimensionally correct copy, uses original screens etc and is streets ahead in quality of fit and finish over the Tribute, it will appeal to the guys with deeper pockets who want a more correct copy.

The Tribute is more of a budget build for the DIY brigade, nothing wrong with it and they can be made to look very good in my opinion.

I wasn't going to bother doing a dash board for my car but must admit they do look very good, I may go down that route but it will be made in steel most likely if /when I do one.

Jeff.

You are right , the Nubodi one is cheap in comparison ...still an awful lot of money for what it is in my opinion ..but if people feel its the finishing touch ...I get that totally ...
Post some pictures of your car Meinheart , with the dash in place , can only help improve your sales ...

Sounds like Chris had a lucky escape if the dash moulds weren't fit for purpose ...

It will be nice to see Minehart and Nubodies cars on Nubodies stand at Stoneleigh at the same time.

Door straps

Great write up on some very interesting work. Thank you.

An alternative to changing the door strap is to play with large C shaped spacers, where the bracket bolts on inside the door. Try a 5mm one at first.

Geoff - car looks fabulous! I'm already softening Jeff up to maybe get the front redone on mine - and no, it's absolutely not why everyone is thinking...as I've discovered, a year is a long time in the lifespan of Tribute GRP and mine is sinking a lot at the front. There's a wide band of pulling all round the separate bonnet panel (where the inner skin is bonded - WTF was the point of putting an inner skin on anyway?) and both that panel and the scuttle on the front clip have matting pattern starting to show its outlines through the paint.

Dash looks great - if you've ever priced up a set of clocks let alone custom ones I'd say they don't look expensive. It's horses for courses I guess - what would people expect to pay? A lot of people were asking for a dash - hard to comment on photos but it looks true and appears to have a functional locking glove box. If it's a decent bit of GRP i.e. hasn't changed shape in a years time(!) then it doesn't seem a bad investment for such a radical change in the interior look.

All the cars

Guys all the cars look really good great photo K

Love the photo's of the three cars in a line.

Three very proud owners i would think and well done to the builders.

The detail of the dash is in my opinion a must all be it at a cost but one thing that spoils a quality build is when the interior gives away the donor car.

Interior

Could not agree more that's always been the poor thing about the cars, the interior still looking like a BMW. Fantastic lines shape and then that interior! Leaving it looking like a 1990's car inside with that beautiful body just never seems right to me.

I am sure everyone has fell in love with that 1960's 250 swb shape so why have it looking like a 1990's car inside? Everything is personal of course but when its all said an done if we all loved the Z3 so much why would we go to all the effort and expense of making the external look anything like one?

That's what you should ask yourself peoples!

Good morning before investing in a new dashboard i decided to try an build! some instruments that would look appropriate , first off i bought a spare Z3 instrument binnacle , this would allow me to see what was possible before taking the dash apart in my car .





The binnacle taken apart , the actual instruments are the 4 silver "plug in " units .
I removed the water temp and fuel gauge units , then after removing the internals from Smiths type 2" gauges fitted the BMW units to the rear of the Smiths gauges and fitted new dial faces (courtesy of Scott"Smash") .



The rusty Smiths gauges were cleaned up and the sprayed black inside and out .

It was much the same for the speedo and revcounter , but i used Jaeger dials from a 60s! Alfa bought from Ebay Germany for just £50 delivered , these were gutted cleaned up then the BMW units screwed to the rear the faces were changed to say Veglia .

I will be fitting them using short runs of cable with a female connector at the instrument end and a mail connector at the PCB end , nothing is tested yet so there may need to be adjustment made to the faces and also the position of the BMW units , but we shall see .







Waiting for a couple of VDO gauges to turn up Oil Pressure and Temp , to complete the set , Geoff .

Looking great !

Nice work indeed. Really hope they work straight out of the box.