Linked from Custom Dash Madness Part II here


Nice looking dash (NOT AWFUL FLOCK!)

When I bought the van it had a flocked dash and door cards in black and yellow.
Which looked good from a distance but close up it was not great and in a lot of places (specially the door cards) it had rubbed off down to the original plastic!



So we wanted something else but obviously it would need to be OEM+ and hopefully cover any of the mismatching work I was doing to the dash itself.

Good friend of mine T4Life , had painted his dash in one of his (many) motors with some textured paint and both Tam (my wife) and I loved it.
Off to B&Q we went to buy as many cans of “Manhattan Mist” textured paint.



This stuff feels very weird when it is dry. Like a soft low grade sand paper (which sounds awful but it is great)

Turned the spare room (which was the spaghetti/wiring room) into a ‘killing room’ from “Dexter” (top series!) ready to attempt some rattle can work.
Then set about sanding down the blue dash taken from the Multilane, after jet washing it on the drive and washing it down with sugar soap.
Keying it all with a harsh sand paper so the plastic primer would adhere well.



Started with the smaller bits for the middle facia. which turned out fantastic.


Then got on with the ‘main event’….



The finish is really really good…..





Plus, the texture hide all sorts of blemishes and




Spot the minor difference with the airbag setup?

















Sprayed all the little plastic bits, like the speaker grills and dash vents with matte black. Just to keep to the OEM+ theme.

Then, it was a ‘simple’ case of putting all back together again!
Honestly, this was the bit I was the most scared of, all the cables seemed very manageable on my test bench but putting them all into a small space in the van seemed nearly impossible.
Very scary….










And eventually, after a few days of easing, jiggling, soldering and hitting with a big hammer….












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Very happy with the result. The ONLY thing missing is the decent front stage I have always wanted.
I have some nice CDT 246 RED BASKET originals that I will be setting up when I get a chance. Might mean hacking up the dash a little again but more likely hacking the door cards, which I am yet to spray with textured paint.

Watch this space…