Hey Guys,
In a recent New England cold snap my 25 year old Firebird dash pad finally gave in and cracked up the center. I could find a new one and swap them but given that the car is very far from original and more of a rat-inspired project (little bit mad-max style, little bit beat 80's muscle car look, mostly a budget fun car) I have decided to try something more creative. Looking for input on a unique way to cover the dash pad. I am interested in trying a vinyl wrap because I have never used one and they seem interesting. Where would you recommend I buy a vinyl wrap from and what do I need to do the wrap one of these dashes? Obviously I need to pull it out, remove or cut out after the speaker covers and mini-vents, what else? I want to try an American flag wrap but cant find one online, anybody seen one? Is the flag idea too extreme?
Really just looking for opinions and new ideas,
Thanks.

 

You may want to remove all the material down to the base structure, as it apparently expands and contracts a lot with temperatures, the wrap may not do too well with it.
Might be a good idea to use foam core construction with fiberglass, smooth it out and then wrap it and you won't have the contraction issue.

 

Use one of these covers, for $100 and your done in 20 minutes

 

This is the route I'm taking. I tried to wrap mine in vinyl but it didn't come out great.

If you're dead set on fixing the one you have for cheap, if I was doing it again, I'd try to cut out the raised edges of the crack, fill with expandable foam, sand smooth, cover with spray on bed liner or something similar. This will probably look like crap as well, who knows.

 

Where can you find one of those covers? Is it a new pad or just a cover for the original pad? I like the idea of bedliner or something similar, wondering if there are other similar paint-style coatings

 

my dash was cracked up pretty bad. i used bondo glass, sanded it down, & then duplicolor spray on bedliner that you buy in a can at the parts store. its held up great in the florida sun and looks fine.

 

even used it on some small parts in the car. IMO the texture is darn near perfect.

 

 

Have you had any problems with it? Fading? Wearing? Becoming rubbery/sticky?

 

You can find them almost everywhere, eBay,Classic,1A etc.it's a cover that Glues down over your cracked pad.
What car do you have? that cover is for the Firebirds.I'll sell you this one if your interested.

 

the dashboard cover is not summer heat friendly. I've never used one but have seen the results. recommend you do a search before proceeding.

 

No, not one problem so far. i guess if it can hold up in the sun in the back of a truck, its fine for a dash?
I was gonna try one of the plastic covers but also heard about them warping in the hot sun. I dont have any first hand experience with them though.

 

It seems like I have nothing to lose with trying to restore my current pad, it is fairly straight and decent except for the center cracks. I am a little concerned that the bedliner wont exactly hold it together and prevent further cracking.

 

i sanded/grinded out the cracks first. then used bondo glass. then sanded it down again before using the bedliner coating.
http://www.autozone.com/paint-and-bo...?checkfit=true

 

redneckjoe,
I really like what you have done.


I was lucky with the dash in my car when I bought it many years ago.
The only thing that wasn't either missing or damaged inside the car.


My car is a DD so I use a "Dash Mat" brand pad and wrapped the outside corners where the pad was not covering with black felt to keep the sun off.
It has cutouts for the vents and sound from the speakers pass right through it.

I don't think it looks all that bad ether.

 

Thanx Ron. my car isn't a DD. just a toy. you have one of the cleanest rides on here IMO. i like the stance of your car too. nothing wrong with a carpet dash cover to save it. i found a pic of my dash installed but theres a sun visor in the window.

i also added a fire extinguisher within arms reach,...just in-case.

 

No the American flag isn't too much, that will never be the case.

My buddy got the plastic cover I believe it was that sticks on over the dash. Within the first month of summer in Arizona last year, and it started warping. It pretty bad now. But it still looks better than a cracked apart dash. He was starting to redo his dash pad himself using spray foam and then sanding it down to about the same height and then was going to recover it with black vinyl. He put that on pause to do the diesel swap in his bronco, but I might take over on it or do one myself.

 

Mine looks far from crap.
I peeled all of the factory vinyl covering stuff off and filled the cracks with expanding foam and then sanded flat. Then fiberglassed the dashboard. turned out great.

 

Redneckjoe your pad looks great, I may give mine a shot with the bedliner.

Did you paint that? or is that bed liner?

 

FWIW, I've read a few similar threads here and it's been mentioned (a few times) that anything other than flat black can lead to problems with reflection off of the pad and also off of the window. If you have any doubt I suppose you could tape some white paper to the dash pad and see how it might affect things.

IMO, the reason for removing the entire top is because of the tension of the vinyl pulling the edges up. From what I've seen it's not just a matter of filling the cracks and smoothing it over.

 

It's painted. With paint you can touch it up easier plus if I am going to go to the trouble of fiberglassing it I didn't want to cover up my hours of work. I am going to remove it and re-block sand it and then respray it. It has a subtle amount of wave from the flexible sanding block I used, this time I'll use a more rigid block. I'm sure bedliner would mask the slight wave.

 

Bingo. I wear polarized sunglasses during the day and it isn't a problem though.

 

I have first hand experience with the dash pad covers. I learned the hard way that they do indeed warp quickly. Mine warped the very first day! It can however be remedied. The instructions these covers come with say to only use the silicone adhesive around the edges to allow the cover to expand and contract. I did this and the whole pad bubbled up about 4 inches as soon as it hit the hot sun. It laid back down in the evening hours but was warped and wavy as could be. Not to be outdone and out $140 I took it all back apart, got out the heat gun and got the thing almost perfect. THEN I went to the hardware store and got a tube of black silicone large enough to fit into my caulk gun and spread it over the entire area. THAT came out looking nice, and held up all last summer with no visible signs of warpage. This winter I went ahead and dropped the cash on a repro dash pad, so I cant say how many summers sitting outside the cover could take. Im just glad theres a new pad on it now and shes in a garage!

 

I know the pain of how cold it was last week here in New England lol, bone chilling. One of the first posters suggested a cover that gets glued to the cracked dashpad, my brother has one and it does its job well and has held up well for the many years its been on but the summer heat has warped it a decent amount, still much better to look at than a huge crack down the center.

 

I have an "extra" dash board with a crack in it. I think I'll take it to an upholstery shop for an estimate to cover in new vinyl. I don't see how it would cost that much to have them sew a new piece to fit and then spray adhesive it into place.

 

Don't be surprised if it costs more than you are thinking it will.

 

Good to know. I don't recall hearing that before but it makes sense.

 

Does anyone have any good pictures of a dash refinished with fiberglass and bedliner? I like the ingenuity.

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...ome-today.html

post 42 in my thread, I used bedliner, not perfect but better than it was.

 

Guys,

BIG thumbs up on the bedliner coating!! I spent about $40 on fiberglass, some 80 grit for my orbital sander, and 2 cans of Duplicolor spray bedliner just to make sure I had enough. I won't say the texture matches factory, but the texture is just rough enough to not cause a glare, but smooth enough to look like it could be a factory reproduction. It hides many minor imperfections 10X better than paint alone.

3 very important pieces of advice though

1) Don't hang it up to spray it, it will run like crazy. Set it on a pair of sawhorses.

2) Make sure the spray cans do a good job of atomizing the material. I swapped out 2 cans the were spraying like there wasn't enough pressure in the can. This stuff is usually not a fast mover in most parts stores, so it must sit around for an extended period of time, or something. Regardless, use a test panel, make sure it doesn't come out in globs.

3) PATIENCE!!! LIGHT coats. After 3 or 4 light coats, you will get the coverage you need. The first 2 are going to look spotty. Patience is key with this stuff. It does take several hours to dry to the finish that will be your end result. So follow through and don't give up half way through.

P.S. PREP PREP PREP!!!!!

Thanks for the idea REDNECKJOE!!!!