One of the snags with cars from the 70s and 80s is the plastics that were used. Some of the plastic parts were not ment to last more than 10 years. So when the car ages some parts become brittle.
In both of my R18s I was confronted with this problem several times:
- In my first 18 a part from the door lock broke twice in both front doors.
- A small part operating the choke valve in the carburetor of R18-1 broke. The part cost ƒ 1,25 (we still had guilders back than), but the whole carburetor had to be taken apart).
- On my second R18 the grills covering the speakers in cabin pulverize when you just point at them.
- In both of my R18s the hands on the clock broke from their axles.
To get instrument pannel out, you have to either remove the wheel and than remove the instrument pannel or get the whole dashboard out. When fixing the dash on my first 18, I used the later option:
In my second R18 the dashboard also has to come out in the future, to mend the clock. I think I will opt for the first approach this time. That’s because I will probably swap the steering wheels from both 18 as well. The steering wheel on my road worthy 18 has some small damage on the fake chrome strip on it, due to… bad plastics.