After all the pictures of rust it may be a relief to see something a bit more aesthetically pleasing….
As touched on in The Story my Imp had a few non standard features as well as the body mods. It has rather a nice little wooden dashboard housing some auxiliary clocks. I don’t have any ‘before’ pics apart from the one taken from outside through the passenger door aperture but here are some of the restored item.
It is not perfect but – considering parts of the veneer were missing and a strip which I found lying in the footwell was re-used – I am pleased with the results. I spent many hours working on this (some time in the early nineties) and initially thought it was only fit for the bin. The black marks are where dampness had discoloured the wood and some parts would not sand out : ( It has been stored under my bed in bubble wrap for years and the varnish might have faded somewhat but I can;t be sure. I used Rustin’s two pack furniture varnish for it and thought it was a great product.
As with the ‘sub panel’ this is a one off part but could be replicated without too much difficulty so further down the line I’ll provide exact dimensions in case anyone would like to copy it.
some black stains that can't be sanded out. 2 screw holes on glove box door apparently held a little plaque re the conversion
glovebox door had fallen off but is solid wood rather than ply so refurbished well. black stain in centre of aperture wouldn't sand out but I wanted to preserve as much of original dash as I could.
this end was most badly damaged. top part of veneer from handle back was rescued from debris on floorpan. piece borrowed from back of dash for veryical section
still have the 4 central guages but large one in glove-box door long sine gone - a clock perhaps?
this end was less damaged than the glove-box end