Re:Dashboard Distortion

My dashboard is distorted/swollen up just below the windscreen vent outlet bezels, and on both sides of the car.
Is this a common problem, and if so, is there a known method of making these flat again?

I was thinking about applying a little heat to soften the plastic and pushing it back down again - but this may be a bit risky and I don't want to cause any secondary damage.

In this area it is a composition of foam with the top black plastic surface. So alternatively I might try to add some metal to hold it down flat.

I have got all the heater ducts removed at the moment, so this is the best access I will ever get.
(Reason for removing the ducts is because it looks like the LE500 parts never fitted together correctly, so all the push-together duct connections were made with paper masking tape and now falling apart. Meanwhile, I'm also trying to figure out a better solution or will revert to a better quality duct tape).

Heating the plastic will probably make it expand and buckle even more, considering that heat from the sunlight through the windscreen which will be the culprit.

Dash warping is common here in Oz.

That's what I was thinking as well. I don't want to make it worse because I need to look at it all the time I'm in the car.
Maybe I will try and get a some kind of metal reinforcement behind it, but there is not much room.

Can we take Common Dash Warping at face value or have we a euphemism here or maybe a marsupial in the same sub category as Drop Bears.
The LE500 seems to have disproportionately more problems than earlier cars, it certainly seems to have had more than its fare share of grumbles on these pages.
If I’d have done some homework before buying the f I might have been drawn to a 500 & assumed that the problems experienced were indicative of all the cars. As it was I just bought it almost on a whim & was more than happy with what I found. Researching a car once it’s in the drive flies in the face of rationality, I’d sold a Ferguson TED20 & found the garage & workshop empty. So it was tractor out roadster in & we’ve got on very well since. It was & remains well screwed together or maybe I should say it has come apart without too much of a fight (with the exception of some of the suspension bit) but those are the bits I didn’t want to find slack.
As I have recently commented when the odometer past 125’000
MG Rover could design & screw a car together when they set their minds to it (when they weren’t striking).
M

Interesting feedback. Although I still don't know if dash distortion (or warping) is a common problem or if there's a recommended repair.
I do have a couple of ideas to try, but was looking for a shortcut. Maybe I need to pull the dash out to fix it?

My son owned this car from new when the LE500 was first released. He gave it to me a couple of years ago after it had been off the road for about 5 years. The alternative option was the scrap yard.
I can honestly say that this car must have been the worst in the world and nothing like its UK built sisters. It was nothing but trouble from the start.

Apart from the engine and transmission, there is very little I have not rebuilt, repaired, replaced or just reassmbled correctly. I have a very powerfull pneumatic impact driver - I would never have dismantled both subframes and suspension without this tool.

It was only the fact that it was a low milage car (less than 20k) and that the shell appeared to be reasonably rust free that made me start this project. Now it's a nice car to drive, but I just need to tidy up a few of these last gremlins to give me a feel good factor. The dash distortion and correct installation of the heating ducts is the final job before getting the air con regassed (I replaced all the air con system apart from the compressor and evaporator).

I suspect you will never get it quite right and as your staring at it every time you drive, it will become very annoying.
Your obviously not afraid of hard work so why not rip it out and fit a good SH one and maybe the ducting too.
Sad to say your remark about the ducting and paper joins made me picture it as joined together with concertina like Chinese lanterns (Sorry)

You're not far off with the Chinese lanterns.

Genuinely, all the heating ducts were joined with masking tape. Obviously they went brittle ages ago so all fell apart as soon as I touched them.

Airportable wrote: Can we take Common Dash Warping at face value or have we a euphemism here or maybe a marsupial in the same sub category as Drop Bears.
The LE500 seems to have disproportionately more problems than earlier cars, it certainly seems to have had more than its fare share of grumbles on these pages.
If I’d have done some homework before buying the f I might have been drawn to a 500 & assumed that the problems experienced were indicative of all the cars. As it was I just bought it almost on a whim & was more than happy with what I found. Researching a car once it’s in the drive flies in the face of rationality, I’d sold a Ferguson TED20 & found the garage & workshop empty. So it was tractor out roadster in & we’ve got on very well since. It was & remains well screwed together or maybe I should say it has come apart without too much of a fight (with the exception of some of the suspension bit) but those are the bits I didn’t want to find slack.
As I have recently commented when the odometer past 125’000
MG Rover could design & screw a car together when they set their minds to it (when they weren’t striking).
M

A little unfair on the "striking" by 1994 when the first PR3 (MGF) was conceived the striking was at an end and it was a reasonably prosperous period, then BMW took responsibility for Rover Group, this was supposed to be the saviour of Rover, unfortunately BMW didn't like the MGF as it clashed with the Z3 so they allowed it to reach the market but would not develop it further, this was designed and made on a shoe string budget using parts bin technologies now known as modular build, you are correct on one part though they could design and build some very good vehicles only to be watered down in final construction by the bean counters (even worse with BMW, I know from experience) when china made the LE a lot of the British firms making the TF parts had either gone bust or didn't wish to re-tool for what was a small production run, so many parts were made in China to quite an inferior quality, hence the LE reliability being questionable, in fact the best build quality is notably the F from 94-99 following the Phoenix 4 take over and project drive the build quality sadly took a nose dive, many TF's suffer badly from rot due to the paint prep being drastically reduced, and cost reductions forced upon suppliers. I was an employee there from 1984 - 2000 (only one strike that in 84 non since as I recall)

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Yes & I’m sorry for the comment, I sort of knew it would garner a negative reaction after I sent it & should have edited out. There is however still some residual anger at the demise of such a great company killed by stupidity & greed.
I took a group of the men from church to the British Commercial Vehicle museum in Leyland on Saturday & might easily have still been there if we didn’t have a Bishop to enthrone in the afternoon.
The standard of engineering on show was remarkable & not one of the companies whose trucks there exhibited now exist. Ok one or two might have DAF badges on them but peel that of & the distinct scrip of the Leyland logo shows through.
I have little sympathy for the men at the top whose greed top sliced the best, my feelings are for designers, tool room staff guys on the production line who wanted to make cars properly & most of whom witnessed the writing scrawling across the walls as Tommy Robinson entreated them to strike again.
I may have got that wrong as well but I do clearly remember watching on TV as Red Robo stood on some staging entreating the workers to strike again, whilst my car was stuck at the dealership for another fault & no chance of getting the part whilst “they were our”.
Since my first car (Morris traveller) right through to now with the MG & my Rover & Land Rover history I have never been without a car made by Brummies in Brum, I only bought the Mazda because there was nothing else to buy that suited me.
I’ve no intention to upset anyones feelings & I’ve no doubt there are others whose grasp of motoring history is well in advance of mine but every so often that old war wound itches & a good scratch helps.
M

"I've no intention to upset anyones feelings & I’ve no doubt there are others whose grasp of motoring history is well in advance of mine but every so often that old war wound itches & a good scratch helps."

Absolutely no offence taken, I too am sore at loosing 1. The best job I ever had at the hands of a foreign invester and 2. A great british company. I just like to set the record straight, yes the unions (a small percentage of the the employee's) drove the company down in the Seventies but equally post eighties was subject to nothing less than asset stripping in the eighties and nineties. I was always "Staff" albeit Control systems (Control Engineer) but always remember the work the track guys did, and boy did they work hard in increasingly difficult conditions, bought on by poor management, that of BMW mostly.

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Agreed, the beautiful woman with a wart on her nose isn’t referred to by her beauty but by the wart.
I have never known in all my seventy odd years a moment when the family had any other cars than Rovers: P2 as a child P4 the first car I ever drove, P5 the car I took my test in, after several SD1s my first NEW car was an SD1 Vitesse & that should have been a keeper. All along there were the Landys & now the MG, the car I drive for fun. Boy don’t I wish I had this when there were fewer cars, fewer pot holes & empty moorland roads.

I’ve done little but pontificate & apologies so far today so let’s get back to the original question. Heating the plastic with a heat gun (et al) is going to ruin what you have, I suspect you will need something that would form to the dash edge shape & also warm the material at the same time. Not hot enough to damage the plastic but warm enough to soften & reform the shape.
As with all of folk of a certain age my joints (the bits that bend & help you articulate as opposed to the bit that are smoked & make you inarticulate) grate & grind & they are helped with heat, my wonderful wife presented me with a “Wheat Bag” which she microwaves & its then placed over the joint (see above for clarify) & this helps.
It is possible that you could look to this as a way forward. It will warm & form at the same time & could be the way forward, some experimentation might be required & even if it doesn’t work you still have something to put on a stiff knee in winter.
M