Dash Lower Edge

[Guest Ant]

Ok guys. 43 hours to my SVA re-test. Just one job remaining - I need a 19mm radius on the bottom of my dashboard. At the moment I have a plywood dash, covered in foam and then vinyl. On the first test they said the foam was too soft and didn't count anyway, and the wood beneath isn't radiused - it's only 9mm thick.

 

I was planning something involving some B&Q plastic waste pipe covered in vinyl, but I can see this being difficult to bend around the corners, and tricky to fix where there is a chassis tube behind the dash.

 

All ideas very very very welcome.

 

Ant

 

PS - 42 hours and 57 minutes now

[Guest TerryBarry]

Hi Ant,

They make the rules - but a 19mm radius seems a bit odd - that's the same as the chassis tube.

I've seen 2B's that have used the supplied metal dash with that push on edging strip (5mm radius if lucky) round the bottom and have passed.

Do you know where you could beg borrow or steal a router with a round-over bit and run that around (having peeled back the vinyl)

The B&Q pipe stuff will bend if heated in bl**dy hot water - or a hot air gun (not your lady's hairdryer).

How about a length of wood or plastic "D" moulding vinyl covered and pinned & glued on - you might need to make a number of little saw cuts on the back to get it to bend round.

Good Luck

Terry

[Guest Mr Pid]

Im having the same grief trying to work out a way to do this also, have a stainless dash and making wooden one.

 

Planning a trip to B&Q very soon to see if i can find any miracles lurking.

 

Good luck

 

Stu

[Guest SteveL]

Hi Ant

 

You might want to re-check that 19mm figure, as I thought that was the radius needed for a non-padded dash? If your dash is padded, I thought the radius required was a lot less that 19mm? If it is 19mm, then I'm buggered!

 

Steve

[Bob Tucker]

I got a length of 19.2 MM water pipe from Halfords.

It comes in rolls so its already curved to roughly dash shape.

Slit it as required, put double sided sticky tape on the dashboard edge

& push it on. If necessary put edge trim on the dash first to stick the tape to.

I passed SVA at Gillingham that way.

Bob

[Guest Ant]

Coolant hose - that's an idea.

 

On the padding front, I was told that any old padding doesn't count. There definition of padding has some kind of hardness test where they prod it and compare it to a sample of a known hardness. My plywood / foam / vinyl wasn't hard enough to count as a form of soft edge in order to get away with the 5mm requirement. The 19mm requirement is for a rigid material.

 

I reckon that standard edge trim, if 10mm total thickness, will meat the 5mm requirement, and be deemed both hard enough and soft enough. This is no good to me as the plywood is too thick to fit it to. I have toyed with the idea of fitting a strip of metal to the dash, and putting the edge trim on this, but it's a bit of a non starter as the whole idea is not to damage my vinyl covering, and puttint it on the back will mean that the front edge protrudes by more than 9mm, and would hence need radiusing like everything else on the front of the dash.

 

Plastic pipe, coolant hose and garden hose pipe, they're my options to date I reckon.

 

Any more comments most willingly accepted - before 3pm today when I leave work

 

Cheers all

Ant

[Guest Mr Pid]

I has the idea of just making an SVA friendly dash to get it through the SVA then after making a nice neat one replacing it with that.

 

Doesnt really matter what it looks like at SVA.

 

I think the hose pipe options are the best so far, had a look at some in local factors yesterday, easy to work with and fairly inexpensive.

 

Good luck tomorrow.

 

Stu

[Guest Andy L]

My experience with the SVA men at Gillingham regarding the dash lower edge was this...

my nice fully foam padded dash was trimmed all the way round with the larger size edge trim.

Padding, good...

Edge trim, bad...

I too was told to make a radius of 19mm on the lower edge of the passenger side. (driver side exempt)

 

At the end of the test the nice man told me I could use pipe lagging - grey foam - and that would be enough to get it through.

(AND to cover the RobinHood spare on the back - sharp radius' on alloy wheel!! AND fit the sierra steering wheel, even though the Mountney was padded and covered it was still deemed to be incompatible with the sierra column).

All I did was cover the foam pipe lagging with a scrap of leather cloth left over and attach it with double sided sticky tape. All that happened on the re-test was a quick look at it to make sure I had fixed these 3 failure points and hand over the re-test fee. One MAC later.........

Andy L

Bexley, Kent

[Guest TerryBarry]

AND fit the sierra steering wheel, even though the Mountney was padded and covered it was still deemed to be incompatible with the sierra column).

Is it possible to expand on this ruling - in what way was it incompatible ??

Terry

[Guest Ant]

Derby SVA centre said my mountney wheel was fine, even un-covered, despite "looking like something more suited to a go kart"! He did say that the mountney set screw heads "shoudl be a fail really", so I've replaced then with stainless M5 button heads for tomorrow's re-test.

 

Ant

[Guest Ant]

IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED!

 

... but only after a constant and persistant amount of nit-picking by both the tester, and myself on his reasons for failing.

 

With the exception of the lower dash edge all the previous fail points were passed straight away. The problem came when he decided to fail me on things which the previous tester had specifically told me were fine!

 

I argued lots.

 

He called the SVA reference help desk ... lots.

 

He then got another SVA inspector involved who came down on my side, kind of, but wouldn't actually admit it.

 

I argued more

 

and more.

 

And then he gave in.

 

I always looked forward to having the MAC certificate in my hand. I thought it would be the triumphant moment after over a year's work. Instead I was so wound up and argumentative by that point that I just took it and skulked away.

 

Then I faced the beurocracy of the DVLA ... and won again.

 

I'm going to fit my numberplates now. That and remove all this dashboard padding crap from all over the place. Then it'll be time for the enjoyment to begin.

 

Ant

 

PS - I'll write a full report of the points he tried to fail soonish, but expect something like a novel!

[Guest SteveL]

Ant

 

Well done! Can't wait for the gory details!

 

How about updating your web site, you slacker!

 

Steve

[Guest Ant]

Well I guess I could take a 3 month break from car building and get the whole web thing sorted ... but ... you know ... my car wouldn't be SVA'd if I did that!!!!!

 

 

No offence meant Steve. Your web site has been a superb source of inspiration and ideas for me. Not least when you took a break over Christmas and I realised that I was catching you up!

 

This web forum and the yahoo group, and most importantly the people who post answers to problems day after day after day are all magnificant! Without you guys my 2B would most certainly not be road legal. To be honest, I'd probably still be trying to track down the fault hall sensor in my dizzy which stopped the engine from starting back in December.

 

Thanks guys. I don't know what else to say. Thanks!

 

Ant

[Les Welsher]

IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED! IT PASSED!

 

I guess it passes then

 

Well done Ant,

now comes all the enjoyment after all that hard work.

 

Les

[Guest Mr Pid]

Well done Ant, nice to hear it went through eventually!

 

I'd better give myself a good kick up the ass and get mine on the road.

 

Look forward to reading your post.

 

Stu