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I had the car stored in an unheated shop over the winter. I went out yesterday to get it out for the first time and as soon as I sat down I saw the cracks.
It cracked from the corner of the speakers to the window side and to the interior edge and followed the wrap around. It cracked on both sides in a very similar spot, which surprised me. It is almost a mirror image.
I know the dash pad is 38 years old but it was crack free in the fall. How common is it for the pad to crack like this? What would have caused this and what can prevent this when I replace it?
This post is more of less just to morn the loss of my crack free dash pad.
Mine cracked last winter when it was 17F. Same spot on the speaker grill but I got a little luckier in that it was only one side and the crack went straight.
Same here. Extreme cold and very low humidity split the dash in several places. It had seen similar temperatures before but the RH was generally higher (that's between southern Ontario as compared to the western prairies).
One recycling yard I visited looking for a replacement (none available even 10 years ago) said that they routinely pull the pad before winter and bring it inside for heated storage. I may now have a replacement OEM that's is remarkably in as new condition. It's experienced the same climate extremes but is still intact. (Touch wood!)
The windshield cracked over that same really cold winter too.
leather shrinks if not protected, and will fade. Plus it doenst look right.
Plenty of posts of how those are not pretty.
It's sad, but, if you want it correct, it'll need to be fixed correctly..
^^This! Also sad is that it seems the Camaro pads are more-prone to shattering than Firebird dashes are. But yeah, as noted above, they can crack without warning pretty much any time. And not necessarily because the car is outside. We have a cracked pad off of each of our 3rd Gens. Finding a good dash for the Firebird was a ton easier than the B4C.
When I got the pad for the Camaro, I did what a friend did to the dash pad on his '69 GTO many years ago. He cleaned the pad, slathered it in petroleum jelly and wrapped it with plastic cling wrap and let it bake in the sun a few days. After that, he cleaned the jelly off and installed it. It looked great. The idea is the oils in the jelly are absorbed into the vinyl of the pad and softens it up, helping to prevent any cracking.
While he just waited about a week, I let mine sit.... for a long time. Both the pads on our '86 SVO and '92 B4C sat for years before being cleaned up and installed. They both look new. Not sure how long they'll last, but they've been installed on the cars for a few years now and look great. The cars don't get out much, though. :-)
^^This! Also sad is that it seems the Camaro pads are more-prone to shattering than Firebird dashes are. But yeah, as noted above, they can crack without warning pretty much any time. And not necessarily because the car is outside. We have a cracked pad off of each of our 3rd Gens. Finding a good dash for the Firebird was a ton easier than the B4C.
When I got the pad for the Camaro, I did what a friend did to the dash pad on his '69 GTO many years ago. He cleaned the pad, slathered it in petroleum jelly and wrapped it with plastic cling wrap and let it bake in the sun a few days. After that, he cleaned the jelly off and installed it. It looked great. The idea is the oils in the jelly are absorbed into the vinyl of the pad and softens it up, helping to prevent any cracking.
While he just waited about a week, I let mine sit.... for a long time. Both the pads on our '86 SVO and '92 B4C sat for years before being cleaned up and installed. They both look new. Not sure how long they'll last, but they've been installed on the cars for a few years now and look great. The cars don't get out much, though. :-)
Might be the approach I take for the OEM dash that still survives.
