Its funny how the small things can change everything. The dash being a great example. The original dash layout and knobs are cool. Functional and retro. And yes the purest's out there will be very upset. But then again this isn't for them. The redesign of the dash was as a direct result of 3 new switches that came with the ARB locker and yes they would seem insignificant till we though about where they should go. The normal route is to but a blanking panel over the radio slot and mount the switches. Ok it would work, its been done before, but then it doesn't look to good. So the opportunity was there to look at the whole dash layout and switches. No big deal, true, but never as simple as that. As were were going to redone the whole dash, we though we might as well add a couple of gauges and additional switches. My main concern was having potentially truck breaking switches easily accessible to small fingers. The temptation for kids to press buttons (especially ones with big red lights) would be too great :)
The objective was to have a logical order to the switches and keep the more important one close and centered to the drivers side and add two dials (Tacho & Clock). To keep everything same, the engine kill switch and ARB 'power on' buttons are located to the right hand side of the steering wheel out of harms way. To keep the whole thing symmetrical the original radio housing is now centred on the dash with the switches and dials aligned above. I think it looks pretty good.
This was the concept
First attempt
Test alignment
and this is how it looks now, ready for the original radio to sit below.
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