For various reasons I decided to swap the original dash I had for a Lee Dawson one. At the time I picked it up he commented that someone else had said it didn’t fit the Forte (but he’d buy it back if that was the case as “he can sell them all day”).

Anyway, I tried it and it doesn’t fit. I measured things and had a revelation. The original  GTs40 dash is larger, has the steering column in a different place and has hence been reprofiled, that’s *why* it’s distorted as it’s not quite worked.

If you take the centre of the seat to be the “ideal” position then the original was offset ~31mm to the left while the LD would make that ~14.5mm

The new dash is 44mm narrower. If centralised the difference between the column positions was 45.5mm which accounting for the difficulty in measuring makes it near as dammit the difference in size between the two dashboards.

After a bit of a think about things I broke out the angle grinder.

This then let me fit the dash

I then messed about with relocating the steering column only to run into a major issue. It doesn’t fit.  The column has to move over about 50mm but the most it can move before the motor hits the side of the chassis is 30mm.

Back to the drawing board. Either a manual column or a different power steering column.

Step forwards please the Suzuki Wagon R / Vauxhall Agila A powered column. This is both 30mm narrower and the motor points up not down. Due to the way the panel slopes out at the top this increases the room available.

As a bonus it’s both lighter and has an electronic clutch. This means that assistance is optional and when not powered is only very slightly heavier than a fully manual column.

As a size comparison

Roughly clamped in place

VS the Corsa B column

That should work then. Now I just had to attach it securely.