Has anyone bought or had any dealings with the person selling the wooden dashboards for Alpines and other classic cars on Ebay?
The reason I ask is, I ordered and paid for one on 4th April, they said it would be 5-6 weeks, which wasn't a problem as I had lots of work to be getting on with. A few weeks ago I made contact through email and was told it would be here by last wednesday, no dashboard, several emails have now been sent without reply.
I ordered it outside of ebay and paid through Paypal.
Does anyone know this person? have a contact number? PM me.

Hi,

I'm guessing you must be Eddie - you emailed me through ebay earlier asking the same thing; The one I got was a little slow to arrive (took nearly 3 weeks as I remember) and that was already made. I haven't got a phone number I'm afraid, only an email and postcode. I don't know what to suggest to you really, sorry!

Nick

Thanks Nick, I got my dash today. I would like to say it was worth the wait, but it's just OK, certainly not worth all the hassle to save a few quid.
It's been ten years since I last restored a car, but I think some of the services people offer are just not what they used to be.

I have to agree, quality is quite good but not superb, altough it's much better than my old one which was way past it's best! Mine's not yet in the car as I'm still in the middle of an interior rebuild. It's sitting waiting, fully built up with all the guages installed! One thing I did notice (which is a bit annoying) it doesn't have a hole for the overdrive warning light! I don't know what the ones from Alpine West Midlands are like, but they are £200 and I paid about £130, so there was a bit of a saving there.

a lesson should be learned good things arnt cheap,and cheap things arnt good ,i paid £200 from brian postle (sunbeam spares ) ,my dash is of superb quality in fact everything he sells is of the highest quality available,i,m a joiner by trade and i wouldnt like to try and make a dash for that price ,so we should buy quality and support our sunbeam spares specialists ,in return for there wealth of knowledge in the mark

fair comment ,if your new to the mark and buying alpine parts you may have not seen diferent quality parts ,ive been buying parts for 15 years and have seen many inferior parts over the years ,ive never had any crap from brian ,

I've bought parts from Brian, he's a good bloke and his knowledge and parts are second to none.
Whilst we are on the subject of wooden dashboards, what is done to make the heater controls fit, the facia is a straight swap but the cable controls need to be mounted on a bracket. What have other members done to fit these controls. Fabrication of some brackets seem to be the way to go, but there's not a lot to fasten them to.

brian made some brackets for mine

I've checked out SAOCA and they advise making brackets which attach to the facia mounting bolts.

thats what mine do

Well after lots of messing about, making brackets, drilling holes bigger, etc, dash is in. Looks pretty good but the nice exterior finish hides some poor workmanship. I know you can't see the back of the dash but if it's a bad as these, it gives you some insight to the quality of the work.
As Valueextra says "you get what you pay for"

OK, it's taken me a long time to rebuild my interior and yesterday I finally got all the carpet and panels done and was really excited as I was going to put my new dash in today! That is, until 5 minutes ago when I discovered the switch holes aren't big enough! What a piece of *£%#! I've now got to either drill the holes bigger or buy a new dash! I'm really not impressed! This is a really basic error. I would urge anyone to think before buying one of these dashboards. You really do get what you pay for!!!

I just reamed mine out with a suitable sized drill very slowly and carefully. you will find fitting the ignition a pain aswell, you will need to make a plate to stop it turning.

I find that there are many uses for a small Dremel type drill (or the cheaper kits around £30 from Draper, Argos etc). This sounds like a good excuse to buy one. They usually come with small drum sanding devices, about 10mm dia - the perfect tool to open out these holes. A drill might split the varnish around the hole.