Carbon Fibre Effect Dash Instrument Surrounds

Mod Description

A simple how-to for putting self-adhesive carbon fibre effect film on the fortwo pods and speedo shroud.

Mod Details

PremiumNo Difficulty Mod ID321 Creditproblemchild Cost££7 For Linkhttps://www.evilution.co.uk/mod/carbon-fibre-effect-dash-instrument-surrounds.htm Copy to Clipboard

What You Need

1) Carbon fibre effect film (i got 2 x 21x75cm for about £7 off ebay)
2) Hair dryer
3) Scissors
4) Sharp knife
5) Dinner knife (or similar thin, blunt object)
6) Warm soapy water
7) Kitchen roll
8) Knees or a helping hand
9) Superglue

Once you have everything together, you need to cut out some pieces. The pod rings are the easiest so I’ll start with them.

Pod Rings

Cut a piece of carbon fibre effect film long enough to go all the way around the ring (with a little overlap) and about 8 to 10mm wider than the ring itself.
Ensure one edge of the cut piece is as straight as possible – i.e. use a pre-cut edge. This will be towards the back of the ring.

Clean the ring with the soapy water (inside and out) and dry thoroughly. You will need to start applying the film at the bottom of the ring (to hide the join/overlap).
This is just offset from opposite the single thin tab or just to the left (as you look at the ring) of the single large tab (hope that makes sense). (As you look at the pod, there are five large holes and one smaller one at the top. The bottom of the pod ring will be where the clip is which fits into the third of the 5 larger holes).

Peel off the backing slightly. Start the film in the right place and line up the straight edge with the back of the ring. Use the hairdryer to warm the film slightly and pull it tight around the ring, keeping the film lined up with the back of the ring. Ignore the overlap at the front of the ring for now. Pull the film reasonably tightly (without distorting the pattern too much) around the back edge of the ring as this allows the front edge to stay tighter and thus not crease up.

Once you have gone all the way round (you may need to trim off excess overlap) then you can start to tuck the front around. Apply lots of heat and smooth it round the lip, ensuring there are no air bubbles. There needs to be an overlap of about 3mm on the inside of the ring (as pictured below) so that the pod can help to keep the film attached.

Trim as necessary (but not too much) until it fits back onto the pod. I used a dribble of superglue on the overlap join to stop it lifting in the heat of the car and due to the very tight curvature of the front edge of the pod ring.

Once you have done the two pod rings, you will be ready to do the speedo shroud which, although it looks easier, is the hardest of the lot.

Speedo Shroud

Cut out a rectangle of the film which is large enough to to cover a plan view (top down view) of the shroud, as pictured below, with an overlap of about 20 to 30mm all round.

The easiest way of applying this film is to peel off all of the backing and apply from the middle/top of the shroud and then heat and stretch out from there – again,
ensuring there are no bubbles. This time, ignore the back edge until the end.

Heat the film at the front edge quite a lot and start in the middle and fold over the small curve in both directions. There should be quite a bit of overlap.

Cut out with the sharp knife where the pegs are (these are the pegs that hold the shroud onto the dash). You will still require a small amount of overlap to go between the curve and the peg (as below).

The rest of the overlap between the pegs doesn’t need to be trimmed but does need to be pushed into the groove using the blunt knife and the lots of heat. Take some time and use some patience and keep poking it in there. It should look like this.

Once this is all done, trim around the rest of the edges with a sharp knife (the plastic of the shroud is quite tough so use that as a guide and it should give you a very tidy finish) and you will be done. No superglue needed on this one as the dash will hold the film on.

Finished Items…

One final note is to put the items back on the car as soon as possible after completion to hold everything in place until the glue sets a bit.

You may need to trim back some of the overlaps if they don’t fit straight away but only trim as much as you need to.