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Good afternoon one and all

 

As part of my winter project I decided to revamp the dashboard on the old girl.(1958 TR3a) The car came over from the US and as part of the restoration and conversion to RHD in the 1990's it was fitted with a hand crafted wooden dash which,I have to admit looked quite fantastic and quite eye catching to say the least.

The trouble is that with the passing of time major splits have appeared in the wood and after very careful consideration I have come to the conclusion it is beyond economic repair .Furthermore if it is repaired there is no guarantee it will not go the same way. I received a couple of estimates to repair it which made made my wallet shiver.

The upshot is that I have managed to obtain an original steel RHD dash but it is missing the cubby box lid and box. Is there anyone who has one and would part with it if I were to pass silver across their palm.

I await with eager anticipation some positive news!!

Cheers

Gordon D

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Hi Gordon,

 

Well done on securing a RHD steel dashboard. They're a bit hens teeth.

 

I had exactly the same issue with mine. The actual cubby hole lid is made from wood and from memory, you can use the LHD one as a template. There is an aluminium backing which can be made in a similar way. I "might" have one in my shed but it's been a while since I had mine converted so I can't remember what I had at the time.

 

Macy's have the complete kit available but you will need to find someone from the US to send it to you as they won't delivery to the UK. I'm not sure if they have only done a LHD version that will need modifying. Someone on here will no doubt be more knowledgeable than me.

If you want to look at how mine is done then you're welcome to come over to see mine - I'm in Bournemouth. We met at the Wessex BBQ in September last year - mine was the BRG TR3 with the tan interior and wire wheels.

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Hi Gordon.

 

It would not be hard to make one, as in above post they are plywood with aluminium backing.

If you wish to go this route I could remove mine, & draw a template from it.

 

Bob.

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Hi

 

Macys garage could supply the Parts . Shipment to Europe can be a hassle cause they wont, But perhaps a member here can reship

 

http://www.macysgarage.com/myweb6/Parts/other_tr2_3_parts.htm#TR2/3%20Glove%20Box%20Door%20Kit

 

I hand-carried exactly these parts from Macy's to the UK for a member of our TR community about six months ago, and we can arrange a handoff I'd be willing to do it again.

 

If you're going to be at the Goodwood Members Meeting in March, Gordon or have a friend who will be, to whom I could hand the parts in person, send me a pm -- I'll give you my address so if you like you can order the parts from Macy's for sending to me.

Edited by Don H.
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Isn't it even easier than Bob offers? The RhD glove box is a mirror image of the LhD version (I think)

 

James

From the post I don't think he has the original dash or glovebox lid.

 

Bob.

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From the post I don't think he has the original dash or glovebox lid.

 

Bob.

 

In his original post Gordon says "...I have managed to obtain an original steel RHD dash but it is missing the cubby box lid and box"

 

Should be easy enough to make if one cant be procured locally.

 

Stan

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When I was converting my TR3a from LH to RHD, I acquired both a RHD dash panel and glove box lid, however when I came round to actually fitting the thing, the glovebox lid had disappeared into the black hole of my garage only to re-appear when we moved house several years later. In the meantime, I converted my existing LHD lid to RHD.

 

The wood bit was easy, I do quite a lot of woodwork so it was very simple to lay up a couple of sheets of thin ply to match the thickness of the original plywood, (you can't buy the same thickness any more, probably as a result of metrication).

 

I re-used the original backing aluminium sheet by very carefully heating and bending the tab to which the support stay connects but it wouldn't be difficult to re-fabricate one if you didn't have the original, it's only flat aluminium.

 

I made a new support stay out of a piece of brazing rod and instead of the original ends, used a small circlip at the lid end and threaded the other end to accept a 6BA nut and put a small rubber washer in to act as damper.

 

For the other two brackets on the dash panel a) that hold the other end of the stay rod and B) the rubber buffer at the outer end - I fabricated these from sheet steel - fussy but not difficult.

 

I spray painted the inside of the aluminium panel with black gloss enamel rather than left it as scruffy aluminium.

 

I had to buy a new lock. but I re-used the original piano hinge.

 

All of the above is pretty straightforward.

 

Rgds Ian

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