RESTORING A 1935 ROVER 12 INSTRUMENT PANEL (and wiring)

Over the last 4 months I have been rewiring my 1935 Rover 12 six-light.

I was initially going to refurb the instrument panel but when I started to
remove the panel I found what can only be described as a Pigs Breakfast!

It has now turned into a restoration due to the poor state of the wiring.

The photos below show what I was faced with.

What followed was a complete strip out and it was quickly evident that this was not going to be a few weeks work. As I worked through each area I found one thing after another which had been either botched or butchered. Lots of instances of the use of Scotch-locks and incorrect cable colours and ratings.

I started with the Instrument panel having removed it as part of the strip out. What I found was more of the same with incorrect cable colour and ratings. I also found that one of the terminals on the light switch had been botched with a self tapping screw instead of a brass grub screw.

The first area I updated was the clock. The original one, or should I say the one that I inherited with the car, had a black bezel. This looked out of place as all of the other instruments had a chrome bezel. As I had another Jaeger clock with the correct bezel I swapped them. Just one minor issue, the new clock was slightly deeper than the old one which meant the retaining bracket legs were not long enough to do their job.
After a day or so I managed to source some flat steel thin bar and made one.

After this was corrected I turned my attention to the panel itself and removed all of the instruments, existing wiring and fittings identing the rear of the panel for ease when refitting the instruments and switches. I then rubbed down the front of the panel masked the edges off and gave it a coat of grey primer before finishing with two coats of satin black.

I refurbished the instrument bodies and switches and replaced all of the instrument bracket securing nuts with the correct size and type.
Some were just plain steel nuts, some were brass nuts, some were brass knurled edge nuts. The latter being of the correct type for instrument clamps/brackets. The reason they are correct is that they are much easier to tighten and loosen by hand giving better mechanical advantage in what is a restricted area behind the instrument panel when fitted in the car.

I had to order in the correct brass knurled nuts.
Now, this may be different on some instruments and some Model Years of 10’s and 12’s but I found that the following nut/thread sizes corresponded to these associated gauges & instruments on the Panel for my 1935 12:
Speedometer; Oil Pressure Gauge; Fuel/Oil Contents Gauge : all 3BA  (4 off)
Clock: 2BA (2 off)

The attached photos show the updated panel with the correct brass nuts fitted.

The third update I embodied was just something I felt was useful but not really required.
I cleaned up and touched in the back of the panel around the instruments and switches then made labels with my Dymo machine (White on Clear) to identify the positions of the switches and instruments should they be removed again or just to confirm the positions when looking at the back of the panel through the inspection cover. The photo below shows this labelling.

Once all of the instruments, switches and gauges had been cleaned up, checked and refitted, the panel was rewired using period replica braided cable of the correct rating and colour coding for the model and year. One item of note is that this model year was originally fitted with Lucas Startix. For safety reasons this system had been disabled and the wiring from the starter solenoid, regulator and instrument panel was modified for a conventional starter switch and system using an RF95 regulator. Wiring diagram and the front and rear of the completed panel are shown below. As can be seen all of the cables were idented with heatshrink sleeves and the panel wiring routed with wax looming string.