Has anyone painted there dash ( i might sound like a flaming honda driver) i have an 86 firebird it had all light grey interior but i want my interior all black/silver is there any good paints out there for painting interior plastics that wont rub of or look like crap? ive seen lots of ricers with pink and purple dashes but they probably just use cheap sh*t.

 

keywords: 'paint' on a dash will rub off, wear off, and flake off. Unless you use an adhesion promotor, etc... don't bother

vinyl dye is what you want. Fabric dye is basically the same thing, sometimes the can says it's for either. Same aisle. I've done mine a few times.

Remember if you have cracks, to grind them out a bit, then fill it with a dash putty glue, then sand perfectly smooth, then add texture, then paint... don't slack off, or it'll look like hell, like mine does..

 

How does dye work? do you just rub it on or something.

 

nope, same deal, it's a spray bomb of paint. But instead of forming a coating over the material, which can flake off, it soaks into the material, and "dyes" it. You can use the vinyl/fabric dye to re-color your floormats say, or if you buy tan door panels and the wreckers, and your car int is black, you can paint them to match.
I've painted a tan plastic panel, the one that goes below the door, if you want a pic of how it looks...

 

Ya id like to see a pic. ill probbaly be dying everything now haha.

 

SEM makes a vinyl dye that bonds to plastic and vinyl very good. It's called Trim Black but it is more of a flat to semi-flat color instead of a glossy color. If you want more gloss, Dupli-color makes a vinyl and fabric dye in a rattlecan that works well also.

 

got 2 pics:

 

... and the other side painted black.


I lied, it isn't a perfect 'dye', you can still scratch off a layer of paint (as you can tell I have done...) It adheres better then "paint", which if you bend the part it can flake off, and will come off in big chunks.... This stuff just rubs off if you scratch it HARD. My door pins are shot, so the door rubbing caused the dye to rub off there.

my brother took the pictures for me, so sorry they're crappy, but if you could look closely at the black side (before I got it scratched up), you'd see it matches the drivers side perfectly, and you can't tell it's been painted.

 

Ya, that actually looks really good. No one would ever know it was dyed unless you scratched it. My girlfreind just loves to put her feet up on my dash and scratch the hell out of it though, theres actually little feet marks on all of my cars dashes.

 

you must address this problem first! She has to learn that she isn't a cat! lol. Besides, our dashpads are too easy to damage and too expensive to replace to let someone put their feet on them. I freaked out when a large friend was getting in and out of my T/A and his knee was VERY close to the corner of the dashpad!

 

Hm, most interesting. I'll have to try this. need to find out what to fill cracks with first though...

 

I used a two part plastic glue/filler I got from walmart. The trick is the use a dremel with a tapered bit, to enlarge the crack, and chamfer it to look like a 'V'. This will keep it from spreading. Then after using the glue, sand it smooth (which will ruin the texture), then you need to apply the texture again.

I'll either be using rustoleum or whoever makes that hammered texture spray paint, to give it a bumpy feel, or see if crappy tire is willing to special order me some Dominion sure seal sur-text. That's supposed to duplicate the factory texture.

I made a post about this before, has other info in it on other ways to get the texture, but that seems to be the main issue.

 

a previous owner of my 82 t/a just reapolstered the dash with a softer material, it saved the trouble of painting and the softer material doesn't add to heat build up as much as a harder material would.