Now I don't seem to have taken (camera was low on batteries so I conserved for vital info) any pictures of removal of the top 3 screws under the binnacle (who thinks of these names), and the screws under the blanking plugs.
But once those were removed, the fascia was starting to get kinda free, the Service Manual was busy telling me just to haul it out, and so I started gingerly pulling to work out what points of resistance were left.
First, cigar lighter itself. You can see the light which came out to top, and then a portrait and landscape plug, the centre landscape plug appears to be yellow, hell, thats the least of my worries:
Secondly, something they really should mention in the manual, virtually directly below the two blanked points to L & R of steering wheel, a ~7mm and a philips screw, both with incredibly long reaches, directly under these and facing the floor. No pics as light was failing and I was wondering if I could finish this task within the day, but I note that it might be possible to fit spacers when replacing the bolts and gain a couple of mm of fascia lift?!
Thirdly, something they should DEFINITELY mention in the manual. As per my Vito van, a little gentle prising (again, if I wasn't refinishing the dash, I'd be pissed at the minor damage this causes) took the centre vents out. Behind them, a metal construct which provides support to them and the stereo. Again, a point where I can perhaps tweak the fitment and get a little lift. It fits to a bolt which by this point I had to photograph with the phone as the camera was dead. Its 8mm I think and if you loosen it, the bracket for this construct slides off. I had bent the construct by this point but hell to it, its getting removed, hammer-flattened and put back on to fit my fascia properly. Here it is shown in pink, green arrow shows the unfortunate bending:
More contortions to remove the gathered wires from the plastic retainers. I will be removing these, painting them by hand, before lacquering and replacing*.
Jebus knows what this is, it was only a few hours ago. But up top is a light and down below is the electrical connection, with red to the RHS of the car. I think its the headlight switch:
Next up, the immobiliser activator. Probably because of what it is, this was the first thing ever I eventually had to cut off. It was too dark to see where it went to and while I'd like to get an alarm sorted, I would probably take the tack of hauling out everything, retaining the power cables and fitting something that I was comfortable with. This has never worked during my ownership and there are some blanked off cables protruding from the glovebox that probably explain why. Nonetheless, this wouldn't go through the fascia (I snapped a clip trying, so I am going to need to plug this unfortunate badly drilled hole ><), followed the usual format of light on top, +ve and ground, so I snipped the long black cable right by the piece, and pulled it:

There's no point in boring you with the two pics of the back of the climate controls, all the vacuum hoses were loose. but thankfully numbered by Lotus, or the kind person/idiot who has mounted 3 of them with a T-bar to the vacuum delay piece - there's only 2 connections to the back of the allocation dial. I will keep the photos in case I struggle, but more important (as the fascia came out and rotated so I could access them) was the 3 dials - oil, boost, and battery.
I took this photo to remember where everything went:
Then loosened each of the 7mm or so nuts, pulled the brackets, pushed the dials away so I could grab them from the other side, pulled the wires, and oh my god:
Fascia is out, and I can see the heater I want to get to. Tomorrow, I'll mark all the wires carefully, push them out the way and try to get to that. Technically (!) after that its just the spark plug cables and distributor to remove and then I am ready to clean it all up and replace the gear cable system!
*not really