Dashboard (first of many times)

We made a start on the dashboard tonight, drilled three of the ten or so holes through and secured with some bolts. Several kind sources of advice suggested drilling slowly with a hand drill through the 'leatherette' ...sounds worse than it looks...dashboard cover material and this indeed seemed to do the trick. We cut out the material to allow the lights and switches, and marked up also for the header tank fixings. Struggling with some of the wiring for the dash though...it appears the Smiths dials take different wiring to the standard VDO ones and so rewiring of the connector blocks is required, but I'm b*****ed if I can get the spade connectors out of the blocks.