my dash was very bad the cracks are raised like a half inch high and the drivers side corner was gone completely.a new dash is big bucks that i don't have i was thinking id just cover it with vinyl but with the raised cracks it would look like crap. so i cracked off the bad spots and filled them with great stuff foam. for the corner that was gone i put a few nails with a large head into what was left of the corner and built a big ball of the foam after 24 hrs it was hard and with a knife and sander i could form the corner

yeh i cant spell

well it looks like it was a good thought, im interested to see a finished product

Great idea if it works. I tried mine with bondo. Looked good till 3 days later. U know how U broke the raised edges off rite? The problem is the edges never stop moving. The dash I put like 4 hours in is now on the the side of the house under 6" of snow. Not worth the trouble. I got lucky and found one a week later at the junk yard. Thank god.

yeh at this point i have nothing to lose.i was thinking bondo but it gets so hot as its curing.i will keep posting pics as i go think as soon as i get the foam done i will seal it all with something b4 i wrap it in vinyl

I'd put a few layers of fiberglass over it once you get it shaped. You'll have to get creative around your speaker holes though. That's what i was planning on doing with mine in the spring.

have you seen the tutorial by this guy?

http://gtam.silvahalo.com/dashrepair/

i love the idea of the bed liner stuff the two part plastic epoxy is very expensive and with the cracks that my dash had in it id need 4 tubes of that stuff at like 50$ a tube for small cracks I'm sure thats good.but think I'm going to go look at the bed liner stuff

well just looked at bed liner spray the only stuff i seen was very abrasive. what do you guys think about rubberized undercoating?

I've used the roll on bedliner, and the spray on. The spray on ahs a very fine texture to it, I think it would be good for something like this

i was thinking the undercoating would be very soft and seal it it the same way
love the impala btw

thanks!

ok the undercoating was a no go but got some bed liner to try out

im gunna try to do the exact thing..ill post pics of how it comes out in the next month or so

HEY! check this out... a guy has a huge supply of that stuff from the tutorial, and it's cheap... I made an offer for $8.50 each for three cans, and he accepted it

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...K%3AMEWAX%3AIT

thats cool i had a very hard time doing it and after spending the $ on all that stuff i still don't like it so I'm still going to rap it in vinyl

but i did not use the same stuff i just had a hard time getting it uniform you can still tell what spots had the cracks but its all sealed now so after raping it in vinyl should look nice... but thank you for the link I'm going to get some to fix a few bad spots on my bumpers

Duplicolor has something similiar with texture.

that's what i'm planning on using on my project

http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/in...on-thread.html (my dash restoration thread)

Link to my failed attempt.

http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/in...y-cracked.html (I fixed my cracked dash. Looks pretty good. Saved lots too.)

wow, you got a whole 4 days out of it? Well at least I know not to use bondo and primer...

I have hopes this stuff I bought works. If not, I'm SURE to be better off than I was before, and I'm out about $20 in materials

Ya. I know now its pretty much a loosing battle. Unless we can find a way to stop the edges from moving. Its the same thing when u do nothing to them. The cracked edges move. My guess is due to air getting to the underside and it peels upward on its own. I smoothed and sanded mine 3 times with the same trouble a few days later. The edges. Was like the dash was alive. If anyone does find a way it would be real nice to share. Good luck.

so you're saying because there's a seam there, the edges turn up?

interesting... I'll have to see what happens with this dash I'm working on now. Hope not, but at least I should be putting in better shape in case I decide to get a cap for it

Ya. If u have a dash pad thats cracked u know the edges move up. I chipped them off so they where flat. Then smoothed the wholes out and painted them. U couldnt see anything till 4 days later then the edges where showing like I didnt use the right amount of filler. So I tried adding more and more filler. Turned out the same no matter what. Cracks came back at the edges that where raising.

sucks for me... I guess the only hope is that the urethane stuff I'm getting holds the edges better...

It's still worth the shot at it, i guess

It might work. I only tried one method. All u can do at this point is try. If it works the reward would be huge. Lots of people could benefit. Good luck.

as i said i did not like what i got out of http://gtam.silvahalo.com/dashrepair/ but was glad i did it.. it is sealed now and no new cracks so raping it in vilyl 2yards was only 6$ on sale 50% off and have enuff to do it two times have to have my wife do some sewing some new pics hope to have it done soon..

I'm still tweaking it, trying to get the seams to look better, I hope to put the final coat of bedliner on today and post pics tomorrow

sweet yeah mine was just to bad to do what your doing i should have taken a pic of it b4 i started some of the cracks were like 2 inches wide and just in bad spots like into the vents and the speaker holes

well got half the sewing done what a pain in the ***

hey I am anxiously waiting to see how this turns out it looks great on top but I am curious how the corners will come out but I did come across this http://www.rochfordsupply.com/produc..._ProdID_E_3810 I don't know if it would've worked better but it stretches so I am wondering if it would be easier around the corners

If u use this mat. ,, no sewing needet. It will glue on and look perfect after stretching it around the corners and the vent holes !!!!!!!

Just my 2 c

stuff looks cool

sewing done



the lines are from the fold in the vinyl not the dash

I've got the refinished dash pad installed.... It's not perfect, but it got a WOW out of my wife.

It's MUCH better, and I learned a lot a long the way. If I had to do it all over again, I could do a better job

pictures tomorrow. we're havinga NTTGA meet, so I should get lots of good pics

stuff looks cool but at almost 40 for 2 yards + shipping i payed 6$ no shipping. don't think the corners are going to be a big problem. hope to have it all done by tomorrow will post pics as soon as I'm done

cool im sure its 100% better than what it looked like

im trying like hell to get the folds out b4 i glue it down

You can use a hair dryer to heat up the folds and speed up getting it flat. Where my pad was cracked I heated up the edge of the cracks and cut them back about 1/2 inch. At the ends of the crack if you can drill a round hole for your stopping point , the crack wont start again. If you use a drill put it in reverse to drill the hole that way it wont peel or rip vinyl.

lol yeah been running the hair dryer..the cracks have been filled with greatstuff Foam and sealed with bedliner.
the folds in the vinly im trying to get out

This is some good info guys. Keeps me from having to test all this out. My plan was going to be to sand the entire dash down to the foam and get a 2 part catalyst cured expanding foam (I've read that "Great Stuff" never fully cures and gets brittle fast) to fill the cracks, then I was going to sand all the patched areas down and recover the dash in real leather.

I just can't decide on what color I want to do the interior of the car in. I'm waffling between dark gray/black or a light tan/cream color like what the interior of my SAAB and my wife's Avalon is. Decisions, decisions.. lol

Look forward to seeing how all this turns out.

the great stuff foam was fully cured in 24 hrs if you look at the drivers side corner thats all foam the hole corner was gone on my pad i put a few nails into the pad and made a big blob of foam and the next day with a knife and sandpaper made the shape.i have used great stuff foam for years on homes it works great lol

the vinyl i got is very flexible leather would be nice but the corners maybe a pain in the *** it going to take some finagling just to make the thin vinyl work

i still have not glued down the vinyl if you go to a fabric store to buy vinyl it comes on a flat and is folded.. I'm trying to get the folds out b4 i glue it down this is proving to be hard i have had the hair dryer on it and in the dryer for a few min still not all out..

I do agree that this stuff is expensive but if it looked perfect or close to perfect I think it would still be cheap but don't get me wrong what you did looks really good. I think probably the best thing to do to get the wrinkles out would be to set your pad in the sun unfortunately the weather isn't really conducive to that. but good luck and I am following what you are doing I have been wondering why nobody has tried what you are doing for a while.

well only got 1 pic vid was going slow so will do that tomorrow its all most done

well its done looks nice please tell me what you think and if the vid work.

looks nice. i went the fiberglass way. its still not done, but it fits 100% in stock location. pretty much at the mark up stages still.

looks nice man