MGB Register Forum

Ian, Mike,

Thank you for the advice and tips. For the time being I’ve reattached the Walnut veneer and I’m going to use the winter to make a decision on whether to repair in situ or fully replace the dashboard (I’ve been contemplating replacing it with an earlier toggle switch dashboard).

Whichever option I go for though, I suspect I won’t be trying the work until temperatures improve.

@Chris: I will let you know next year as and when I remove the panelling. The only thing I would say is that there’s 40 years of wear and the occasional knock on the veneer - so they aren’t in the greatest condition. But I’ll get some photos at the time for you.

]So… several years of work distractions later (a a few mechanical headaches thst took priority), I finally got around to this one.

Getting the wood panels off revealed greater horrors, particularly around the instruments. I took some more photos Doing some research I found out that the more subdued paintwork look may be the original affect for the dashboard during the early Lapland era. So I’ve made a decision to keep as much of the original paintwork as possible and treat any visible repairs as patina.

I used JB Weld Steelstick e-poxy to fill the screw holes andI Simomex Tough Black Satin as I was led to understand the drying colour merges well with the original paintwork. During the recent heatwave (about 30 degrees) I removed the rust and thenI sprayed the paint onto the affected areas. The results are variable, but relatively positive as you can see in the photo below and the others in the next post. I found that to get the best results, you needed to stray the paint on and then leave it to dry for about two-three minutes. I then used (sacrificed) a micro fibre cloth to smudge and merge the paint into with the original paint. Where the damage was relatively small, I got very good results. Where the paintwork damage was more extensive, the results were more lacklustre. But even then, layers of pain may get resolve that issue

For now I’ve reassembled the dashboard so I can see how the paint looks after some exposure to the sun. When I come to do more work on the surround for the instruments I’ll also work on smoothing over the holes (they are far less obvious in real life compared to the photos). But at the moment, I’m rather pleased with the outcome

And that was done without removing the dashboard!