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Hi all.

This weekend, I've embarked on some light tidying of the interior on the 1965 998 Cooper.

First up, I'm wanting to re-seat and restick the vinyl on the dash top rail. It's always been finished not quite right where it's sandwiched under the fresh air vents, with what seems to be an excess of vinyl which has either not been stuck correctly or has come away. My question is, how exactly should this vinyl be fitted to the fresh air vent flange? I've tried to study the picture of this area in the John Parnell bible, but I'm struggling to make it out, should the vinyl be stuck over the top of the metal dash rail flange somehow? Otherwise it would be presumably, body colour metal...

Also, I've stripped out the vinyl covered cardboard dash panels and discovered what looks like some ancient horsehair soundproofing(?) / insulation(?) material lurking behind, which was a little damp truth be told from the condensation on the inner bulkhead. Now, is this stuff original? If so, is it replaceable? Does anyone even make such stuff anymore? Or would it be more correct or preferable to simply leave it out when I refit the dash panels?

As an aside I've also discovered that the car has been Tweed Grey, Red, Almond Green and back to Tweed Grey in it's lifetime. I knew about the red from a previous owner, but the Almond Green was a new discovery.

Hope some of you can help with the above trim queries. I'm trying to keep these elements of the car as true to original as possible.

Many thanks! Ed.

I say that the loose density horsehair matting was the original. Sops up water and any moisture like a camel drivers jock-strap. Personally, I'd replace it with a high density silicon based foam and be done with it. As for originality, my manra is reliability, maintainability and serviceability. In your case, it's out of sight so who really cares

When I stripped mine (still have all the original bits) the vent ridges had vinyl on them, but as Mark has pointed out, who notices if they are painted black anyway?

The two flanges have a separate strip of vinyl glued on, I've seen these with the corners left square or the corners bent over and glued. The first two pictures are original spec.

Thanks for the replies chaps!

This is all very helpful indeed. So, it looks like a separate thin strip of vinyl is cut, stuck and folded over the metal dash top flange. This makes much more sense to me than the way the restorer had done the one on 'Tweed' which utilised the dash top rail vinyl to achieve this with no success I think due to the number of folds it was subjected to and the clamping force of the black metal finishing plate which has probably pulled the adhesion away from the flange. I think I now have a much better idea of the original fitment and can hopefully achieve much neater results.

I've been studying the horsehair stuff and it looks like it's probably the original material, albeit, shall we say far beyond it's best now after 58 years. I've managed to find a trimming company online which supplies a very similar product and also one with a latex rubber backing, which I think will be more fit for purpose, for reference this stuff:

https://www.woolies-trim.co.uk/p-1384-s ... ening-felt

Thanks again for the contributions, info and particularly the pics Bob, really appreciated!

Cheers! Ed.