So final-ish part of Astro radio replacement.
Speakers will be done as well when I get to it.
Amazing how a little job 50 meters from the garage can take a bit longer than anticipated. This includes fetching tools, changing screws and various other things that kept reminding me that I should have reversed the van down to the garage.
I didn’t do that of course.
Another one of the jobs, after another good wash with some ammonia based cleaner (Jif, Cif, Handy Andy) to remove grime and get into grooves, was to treat the plastic plastic polish gel and wipe it down.
You can see the difference between before and after. Bringing it closer to the van’s original tone.
Keeping in mind my van is a 90 model and the donor was a 95.
GM quality control clearly could not manage their suppliers to even keep colours matched.
Next up was a repaint of the plate that @Westbay had objected to. Mainly because painting at 6’C is not advisable as the paint reacts differently to a warmer day.
Which had left the satin finish a distinct variation of matte black.
I wanted satin to blend in more.
The leather texture of the Mazda Bongo plastics came through better as well.
making the dash fit back over the radio and bracket necessitates a lot of grinding back and modifying.
Thank goodness for cheap, super handy tools.
In order to get the macking plate in and also to have the radio face where it needs to be I made some high density foam packing strips and used longer screws.
This worked really well.
Finally dash returned one more time to ensure factory fit established and screws added to keep it all together.
Last job, replace all the blanking plates to the dash and try out the radio
Success!! !!
I will be putting all the four mirror, aircon etc switches up for sake on the local UK Astro group as someone is bound to need something to replace a failed unit.
Today it is back to clearing out and sorting more of the shelves in the unseen part of the garage.