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MG TD TF 1500 - refurbish the dash

Dear enthusiasts fellows,
my winter project will be to refurbish the dash. Sounds simple but it isn't.
First of all how to remove it? There are visible screws, no problem so far. I believe removing the steering wheel and disconnection of the Speedo and tachometer cable should not be the problem, but whats about water temp, choker and starter cable?
A lot of electric wires have to be disconnected. Is there any strategy or precaution to manage this job? Making pictures will help may be to get everything together at the end.
Any proposal and advice is appreciated.
Cheers,
Guenter



Guenter

Guenter,

The water temp, choke and starter have to be disconnected from under the bonnet and the lines drawn throught the firewall to remove the dash completely. The oil pressue can be disconnected at the gauge.

There may be bullet connectors at the main beam (blue with white) and dipped beam (blue with red) and perhaps the horn ground (brown with black) The rest of the wires going forward will have to be removed at the switches in the panel. The fog lamp (red with yellow) the ignition (white) depending on how your sub harness is made, and one connection to the fuel light, ignition warning light and the ammeter. again depending on how your sub harness was ocnfigured. There are pictures in the electrical section of my website.

Good luck,
dave
Dave Braun

I've done a fair amount of electric work on different vehicles. My recommendation (and a job I'll be doing soon enough) is to pull the dash forward to expose the wires, and then add crimp on bullet connectors to every wire that needs to be removed. In the process you can use heat shrink material or even labels to aid in reconnection later.

Don't know how others feel about it, but that would be my approach.
G M Baker

Refurbish? Your dash looks wonderful, as do your door panels! What's to refurbish? I'll trade you!
Ed
efh Ed

Thanks Ed,
but the reality looks not so good like the picture. The wood has some cracks and need definitely some work and a new varnish to seal it for the future. Somebody knows that I’ve moved from NC, USA to Hamburg, Germany and the weather condition is totally different. There is a lot of humidity and rain and my little baby needs protection. Also the instrument cluster need a new painting, I don’t like the black crinkle paint on it.
Anyway, I have to do it and I will do it this winter time.
Thank you all for help.
Cheers,
Guenter
Guenter

I'm not a big fan of adding extra connectors for disassembly of the dash. If you can get at the grub screw, that is the most secure connection available on our cars, more so than the bullet connector. The only place I add a bullet connector is where the grub screw is inaccessible such as the interior of the ground for the horn switch. That said... tighten your grub screws very, very securely. It is a personal failing of my work that I tend to undertighten the grub screws, with the consequence being a loose wire and a failed circuit. This has been the case on four cars I've rewired, including my own! I'm slowly learning that I can crank on them quite forcibly and not break them.

warmly,
dave
Dave Braun

Dave Braun -- The grub screws on the voltage regulator don't take kindly to overtightning. They spring open and then the grub screws seem to want to get cross threaded. Seems some of the brass they used for the terminals was too soft. I have devised a way to correct the terminals when they get sprung open. It involves a srewdriver and a small hammer. Works like a charm at least so far. FWIW.
Cheers,
Bob
R. K. Jeffers

Bob,

Yes, that's exactly my fear... sprung thread terminals, but there has to be a happy medium somewhere in the equation. Too many of my wires have been backing out, rendering something inoperable, until attended to. This has been a problem on all of the cars I've redone. I guess my 'Forcibly' is different and less robust than others!

Thanks for the info!

warmly,
dave
Dave Braun

This thread was discussed between 04/11/2009 and 05/11/2009

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