IMM/Mini 50 Gathering 2009 and Removing Dash

[kayball]

Hi all.
Nice to meet so many of you (12 cars) last Saturday at the IMM2009/Mini50 gathering.
Firstly, I think all those who attended should offer Darren our sincere thanks for all the hard work in organising us and for purchasing the ERA Banner for use at future events. We made our contribution towards its cost, any that didn’t but would like to contribute please contact Darren so he isn’t out of pocket.
Those of you we met will know that on the way to Longbridge the car developed a strong petrol smell inside the car, which we had assumed at first to be due an overfilled tank. It did persist for the entire journey (103 miles), however , and we thought it was smelling most when I braked into a corner or accelerated out.

On the way home, the car felt a bit sluggish and it was only then that Chris noticed that the boost gauge wasn’t moving! Not something I look at very often whilst driving so don’t know if it was reading during the morning journey. Decided that the pipe to the gauge had probably fallen off, thus allowing some petrol from the manifold to enter behind the dash when full throttle was used.

Pulled out the dash today, found the pipe was disconnected and. fitted a new angled rubber coupler to the Boost gauge end in place of the original straight item. It didn’t look perished, so may have just come off due to the pipe at the manifold being pulled out from the dash.
All now ok, so quite a cheap problem to solve.

Pulling the dash is not that easy if you don’t know how, but fortunately we had removed it before.
For those who haven’t done the job, the dash is held in by three screws — one in the bottom of the glove box, requiring a very dumpy or right angle cross point screwdriver— the second screw is in a corresponding location but pointing upwards at the drivers side. This is accessed from underneath the dash (A mirror on the floor and a long cross point driver saves you lying on your back through the door). Finally, the hidden one that is not mentioned in the Service manual, but is located behind the centre ash tray — rotate the tray to fully open, then gently disengage the tray surround by applying pressure to its top and bottom edges. (Small tapered plastic lugs engage behind the dash. and the surround can be bent inwards sufficiently to free them.
Best regards to all who made the effort to attend the event of the year.
Pete Kay and Chris Kay (Webmaster)
(Red ERA 1031)

[millermilla]

I had my dash out about 6 times in 2 days, I reckon I could now do it with my eyes shut