Hi I am new to this forum. Thanks in advance for the help.

Car is a 1974 2.0.
I am replacing the radio and have a roll of basket weave vinyl to do the rest of the dash as well.

My Question is: was the radio plate always separate in terms of vinyl basket weave or did the vinyl ever come as one contiguous piece from the drivers side all the way to the seam at the glove box with no seam for the radio plate, or were the radio plates always separate?

-Andrew

Seperate, but I suspect if you tack weld in the plate, it will work.

Oh, I meant the vinyl, not the metal. I was thinking of just taking the vinyl right across the seam without cutting it. If none never came like that Im fine with the seam. Probably easier to serve or replace the radio

As far as I know, they all had black vinyl that ended at the left edge of the plastic radio face plate (also a black basket-weave look). The right side of that plastic radio face plate was bordered by the left edge of the glove box door as shown a friend's car:

Click to view attachment

When I re-did my dash I used a replacement metal radio mounting plate (from RennenMetal I think), then covered the entire dash face with what looks like a single piece of tan basket-weave across the dash from the driver's side vent to the left edge of the glove box:

Click to view attachment

The overlap under the heater/fan control is hidden when the lower dash is in place. When everything is installed, it looks like a seamless piece of vinyl. Of course, I couldn't find a picture of that

Hope this helps!

yes, thanks Steve, that is what I was thinking, running the vinyl all the way across. I will set up my radio first in the plate and decide—if I can get it in and out from behind I think I may run it all the way across. r_towle's idea of welding it is a good idea to keep it stable. Now I have to decide how motivated I am.

Thanks again

-Andrew

You could even run a piece of thin foam core under it too.

Real thin…...

FWIW, my 1976 had single continuous piece of brick weave from factory.

My understanding is that all radios were dealer installed such that none were really "factory". As a result, I think you would likely see many variations. One example is mine where they actually used plain black vinyl on the radio plate even though there is basket weave on the rest of the dash. I know this is as delivered since the car is very completely documented and i have had conversations with the original owner about this. I suspect for some reason they did not have basket weave in stock when they installed the radio...or they grabbed a radio from another Porsche as a quick solution and did not bother to change the vinyl.


Click to view attachment

Correct
I have the delete, DIN, and OEM style plates if you need any.

Thanks. I did buy an original plate with basket weave but the car is so original that I've decided to leave it as delivered. Some of these quirky things are what makes a particular car interesting.

Steve

HI MIke,

My new plate and vinyl that I have ready to go in are both from you

I may be new, but I do research vendors : )

Thanks,
My site is a little hard to find stuff on.
Mark

Just put the search box at the top. I didn't notice it the first few times I was there.

I just bought some pretty expensive super strength moulding double sided tape at the auto parts store: http://www.shop3m.com/3m-scotch-mount-mold...-in-x-5-ft.html
Is that what I want use to stick the metal backing plate back in?

This place is great BTW, Thanks for the help.