I have one of my spare dash pads down to foam in an attempt at recovering it. The factory vinyl was cracked to hell so it's not really a loss anyway. After I removed the vinyl the foam looked to be in perfect shape so I decided to take a stab at putting some new vinyl on it.

Where can I buy some nice vinyl online? Also, what kinds of vinyl are available? I think that I remember reading somewhere that there's a stretchy kind that conforms well to curves. This seems to be exactly what I need. The hardest part of this project will be getting the two front corners looking good. I bet that the factory molded them in and then slid the pad into place. I can't see anything solid/thick being that stretchy.

Thanks in advance for any and all comments/replies

 

How are you going to do the speaker holes? I am not saying you can't I am just curious if you know how and can enlighten me because I am tired of replacing these darn things.

 

www.selectproducts.com

I've bought a good amount of vinyl from the local Dr. Vinyl dealer. The benefit to this is that they have a tremendous amount of samples that you can wade through in order to get just the right texture that you're looking for. Dr. Vinyl probably has a website that you can order from too.

Make sure you get a good quality vinyl that has stretch in BOTH directions. Some only stretch in 1 direction. Practice on some scrap material and get familiar with heating it with a heat gun or hair dryer. Too much heat will melt the vinyl, but some heat helps a TON with stretching it. Also, you'll need to learn how much you can stretch the vinyl before it begins to appear deformed or color faded. A dashpad is going to be a difficult item to recover if you're looking for professional types of results. A few guys here have done it, and so far I have not been the least bit impressed with their results. Seams, wrinkles, stretch marks, etc. I'm not trying to criticize their work, but just convey the difficulty associated with getting professional-quality results.

I thought about vinyl-covering one of my spare dash pads, and I still may give it a try, but I have a feeling that I might have better results if I fiberglass it and use a texture spray instead.

 

I'm not sure where I could send it to get it professionally recovered, that's why I was thinking about doing it myself. If anyone knows of anywhere feel free to post it.

How would you fiberglass the dash? Do you mean create a mold off a spare and then pop one out using the mold or do you simply mean layering some glass onto the foam and working from there? Wouldn't the resin melt the foam? More info here would be greatly appreciated because I've got an abundance of fiberglass products on my hands right now because of my soon to be sub box. More info on the texture spray is welcome as well.

I don't think the actual recovering should be all that hard. The hardest parts would be the defroster vent and those two corners. I have a feeling that I could work the vinyl into place around the vent using some contact cement to hold it down to the foam but I'm not sure about the corners. I would most likely have to create a seam on the bottom of them like you did with the carpet on my kicks.

One more question: did the other people who tried recovering their dash pad pull the old vinyl off the dash pad or did they just layer another piece on top? I might have an advantage here in that I’m starting from foam.

I was actually going to omit the speaker holes in the dash pad because I'm running kicks. I'm in the process of filling the holes with a two part expanding foam (like what some companies use for shipping). Since I was going to recover it anyway I figured that I might as well do away with the speaker holes for a cleaner/more unique look. If I were to keep the holes they wouldn’t present a very big challenge as compared to the defroster vent.

 

I don't think the resin will eat the foam, but to be honest, I'm not sure... I haven't begun to experiment yet.

As for what I was planning to do, I hadn't really thought that far ahead yet, but I think the mold would work the best, although it would be the most work. I'm not sure if a single thin layer of glass right over the current vinyl would leave enough room for sanding and painting or not. I really haven't gotten very far into the thought process yet.

Anyway, SEM and others make a texture paint that can look very natural.

On to vinyl wrapping.... the seams in the corners will look like ***, at least in my opinion. It's a lot easier to hide a seam in carpet, especially if it's hidden once installed. But... those corners won't be hard. With a good flexible vinyl and some heat, you'll have no problems getting the vinyl to stretch around those corners if you start there and work toward the center. Your difficulty will lie in the defroster vents. Even if you can stretch the vinyl enough to make it conform, getting it to stay that way will require an outstanding glue that won't soften with the sun beating on it through the windshield.

By the way, http://www.justdashes.com/ can redo your dash pad, but I have no idea what it will cost. It'll probably cost more than just buying a new one.

 

I sent one of the sales reps @ select products an e-mail asking about a few of their vinyl offerings. It looks like I could get all the material I need for under $70 even if I used the best product they offer. The only downside is that it's heat forming and I don't know what effect the sun will have on it. Regardless, it’s only $70 and a spare already cracked dash pad if I don’t succeed.

I’m really hoping that the vinyl works out because I’m trying to get some hands on experience with it before I try stripping and recovering my deluxe trans am door panels. I hate the flat ones and it’s near impossible to find the built out/deluxe ones in nice shape.

If I can’t get the vinyl to work the way I want it to work I might take some resin to the foam to see if it will melt it. Encasing the foam in a glass shell then painting it sounds like a decent enough idea if the vinyl idea doesn’t work. It will also be something that I’m more familiar with. I don’t like the idea of working over the old cracked vinyl because it doesn’t make for a very good starting point.

I'll post the reply I get from the sales rep.

 

I've got 2 sets of GTA door panels that I intend to work on and install into my Camaro. I'll keep you posted when I begin working on them. Maybe it'll give you some ideas even though I'm probably not covering them in vinyl.

I'm going to build a fiberglass insert where the carpet goes on the door panels, and wrap that in new carpet. The remainder of the door panel will probably get repainted, though I may experiment with new vinyl if I feel ambitious.

The 2nd set of door panels is reserved for when I change the plastic color in the car, and I want a set to play with because I might try to mount an 8" midbass in each door so that I can run a midrange/tweeter combo in the kicks instead of a woofer/tweeter.

 

Changing the interior color is one of the two reasons for me wanting to do this (going from tan to black). I already have all the trim, black seat belts, and a new headliner installed. mmm, sexy headliner. The only things that I am missing are the door panels, the front seats, and the back portion of the rear seat. I'm going to have to recover it after I install my amps into it so that's not a biggie. Try as I might I can't seem to locate any black GTA panels and I'm sure that if I managed to find some they would cost a small fortune.

The second reason is that the carpet on the door panels isn’t as tight as it used to be and so it’s sagging some/doesn’t look that good - this it the main reason why I’m going with recovering vs dying.

I’m thinking about laying a layer of glass inside the door panel directly on the cardboard to give it some strength before I attempt to remove the factory vinyl and cloth. From there I will stitch some carpet onto the new vinyl and then stretch the whole mess back on. That’s the thought at least. If I fail I might end up and just making an entirely new design.

Speakers in the doors would be somewhat cool but it would require a lot of building out, which is something I don’t really want to do.

Still waiting on word from the sales rep. Hopefully I will have a responce by the time I get home from work tonight so that I can order me some product to mess around with.

 

The benefit of going to black, is that black vinyl paint will cover almost anything.

If you've got the GTA-style panels, you can make a new "insert" where the carpeted section is out of fiberglass, just like I plan to do. That will make it unnecessary to recover the whole panel. It also makes the speaker build-out a little easier, because it can be contained in the same space, and not look nearly as dumb as a normal door build-out, but time will tell on that.

if you've got the flat cardboard style door panel, then recovering it in vinyl should be a piece of cake anyway, so I'd give it a shot.

 

I have the GTA style pannels. If I had the flat ones I would save myself the headache and go buy a set for around $100 from someone online.

No word yet from select products. I will call them tomorrow I think.

 

I’m bringing this thread back from the dead and going the topic back to dash pads: do you guys think recovering a dash pad still wrapped in uncracked vinyl will work better than taking it down to foam? I’m not sure that the foam is going to be stiff enough to wrap the new vinyl around. I either need to find a way to make the foam more rigid (apply filler to it and really pack it down?). I have the feeling that resin will just melt the stuff.

I’m done with the prep work (filling the speaker holes) on the pad that I ripped the old vinyl off and am ready to start thinking about the next step.

If you were to recover it, what approach would you take?

 

I've thought about contacting Just Dashes for a price quote. They restore muscle car dashes, and I believe they use a heated vacuum form just like OEM to shrink the vinyl right to the foam and leave a hard finish, just like stock. Since I'm **** about making my modifications to appear as stock-like as possible, this may be the best solution for me, although I'm sure the cost will exceed the price of a new dash pad.

The second best choice will probably be to wrap the existing pad in vinyl, but you're going to have to be very good to make this look anything above amaturish. You're going to need a vinyl with good stretch, good heating abilities, and you're going to need a good glue or contact cement, which will spell out disaster if you don't lay the vinyl down right the first time.

 

That's pretty much what I was thinking. Just Dashes does have a heat vacuum former thing. It looks pretty funky in action. I think I will send them an e-mail for ****s and giggles. I'm pretty sure someone on here did a while ago and it was around $400-$500, which is the cost of a new pad from GM. The upside of Just Dashes is that they use a better vinyl that’s not supposed to fade/crack as easily.

Depending on which pad they would want (foam only or the one with vinyl still on it) I will take a stab at recovering the one that still has vinyl on it.