The new steering wheel looks and feels great, I didn't think I was going to like the Triumph Standard boss, but I do feel that it looks classy.
While I was working inside the car my attention turned to the dashboard for two reasons, firstly it was impossible to see the instruments at night, even with the rheostat turned up full. A kit of LED bulbs from Better Car Lighting resolved that, Gil offers various colours and I chose green to maintain the original look only three times brighter, great. Gil also sent me LED bulbs to replace footwell and roof lights and the auto gearbox indicator, so much brighter, but like the engine bay, they show up the appalling state of front seats and carpets, again they will have to wait their turn.
Secondly, I was missing a clock on the dash and as I didn't want to keep taking the dash out for fear of continually disturbing the 40 year old wiring, I had planned to do this job at the same time as upgrading the instrument lights, I needn't have worried, the wiring all looked to be fine and the dash came out quite easily. I had already ordered a dual water temperature/oil pressure gauge and a clock. By removing the two separate oil and water gauges, that freed up a hole for the clock and now all fitted and wired. The top photo of the two above shows the new instruments in place. The photo below shows me removing the oil tube to the old pressure gauge so after a little rerouting it can be screwed onto the back of the new gauge.
The exception is the water temperature part of the new gauge, I will have to drain down the coolant before I can remove the electronic temperature sender from the block and replace it with the bulb that is attached to the capillary tube, in the meantime the other under dash temperature gauge, fitted by PO will suffice although difficult to see as obscured by the steering wheel, but it is very accurate, hopefully the new one will be as accurate.
Last job whilst under the dash was to fit a buzzer to the indicator flasher unit, there was virtually no audible sound from the flasher unit and the warning lights are difficult to see. I had to substantially muffle the buzzer to bring the sound down to an acceptable level, but now I won't be leaving the indicators flashing should they fail to self cancel. I was confused at first as the flasher unit I discovered under the parcel shelf only operates when the hazard lights are switched on, with another unit for left/right indicators tucked away in the plastic steering column shroud, found it in the end though.
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