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I have read the thread started by mirage2991, don't want to hijack it.
After a couple of valiant attempts at saving my dash top I have given up. I see from the other thread that the repro dash tops are hit or miss, probably depending on a lot of variables and variations with our cars as we restore them. What about the dash overlays that are available for about 1/3 of the price, anyone have anything good to say about them? Structurally and form factor-wise my dash top is fine but there are some fine cracks in the rearward edge.
You can take the piece to a car upholsterer and they can put a new vinyl/ leather skin on it and use proper glue and staples to hold it on. They can even put a stitch along the front edge if you want and you will keep your demister hole.
Then you get to keep your nice fitting original part with a new lease of life.
My car had it done , the only thing you loose is the dash speaker holes get covered . So if your into originality this won't be any good for you.
You can take the piece to a car upholsterer and they can put a new vinyl/ leather skin on it and use proper glue and staples to hold it on. They can even put a stitch along the front edge if you want and you will keep your demister hole.
Then you get to keep your nice fitting original part with a new lease of life.
My car had it done , the only thing you loose is the dash speaker holes get covered . So if your into originality this won't be any good for you.
Thanks for the reply bazza77. Originality is not so important but I do have some replacement speakers going in there so I need the holes. My dash top, which I assume is original is two tone. The interior is smoke and the horizontal part of the dash top is a dark gray and the rear facing part which rolls down to the lower dash panels is light gray. I assume they did this to reduce glare from the windshield. It is the curved surface that has hairline cracks in it, the horizontal surface is fine. What I did was buy some stretchable vinyl and I attached a strip over the light colored area using Weldwood contact adhesive. I am using SEM Color Coat (highly recommend this product) all over my interior and sprayed that on the replacement piece to match. It looked great when I finished it but I put the it aside for a few months and when I came back yesterday to install it the piece was peeling off, the contact adhesive had failed.
I do have a call in to a guy I know who reupholsters car interiors, I'll see what he has to say.
The overlay, which is vacuum formed to cover the entire dash top (has the speaker holes) looks like a great fix but I am afraid it might shrink or warp or otherwise fail. I am hoping someone has some experience with that.
yes ok , I have used the 3m aerosol can spray glue with good results .
If originality is not important maybe they could make a new cover and patch in some mesh type sections to let the music out ?
Yes I have too, I don't know why it's not working. Maybe something about the stretchy vinyl it doesn't like? Maybe I should give the vendor a call and ask them, it's a marine product. One thought I had was trying to incrementally lay it down with a hot melt glue gun. That's a long shot and would be last resort, if it doesn't work I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and buy a repro and hope it fits. I am getting close to the end of this project and I am so over budget...
Like mentioned you can get it upholstered. THats what i did myself.
The upholster guy can make holes with a hole punch tool.
I used a 1/4 inch foam overlay then a 2 piece vinyl with stitch similar to original. I made the speaker holes simiar to original using a template and punch.
Like mentioned you can get it upholstered. THats what i did myself.
The upholster guy can make holes with a hole punch tool.
I used a 1/4 inch foam overlay then a 2 piece vinyl with stitch similar to original. I made the speaker holes simiar to original using a template and punch.
Ya know, that gets me to thinking, thanks for that comment NONN37. My strategy of just covering the bad part looks to be fatally flawed but covering the whole thing, tucking and stapling might be worth a shot.
If i had to do it over again id have taken mine to an upholstery shop...find one with some old guys in it.
Not a vette but my repop pad had those plastic things in it (like studs) they all pulled out immediatley now they lift over time. Cheap chit.
Shoulda had the whole thing redone in somehting neat screw all that original stuff noone cares.
If i had to do it over again id have taken mine to an upholstery shop...find one with some old guys in it.
Not a vette but my repop pad had those plastic things in it (like studs) they all pulled out immediatley now they lift over time. Cheap chit.
Shoulda had the whole thing redone in somehting neat screw all that original stuff noone cares.
I don't care if it doesn't look perfectly stock, the rest of the car doesn't...close but far from perfect. There are significant modifications underneath though.
I found out what the problem is, called the supplier of the stretchy vinyl and they told me it does not glue well, not recommended. Didn't think to ask that when I bought it. But the good news is the Dash Top cleaned up well and I am back to square one. Now I need to find some vinyl that does glue well but has enough stretch to do make all the curves.
Ya know, that gets me to thinking, thanks for that comment NONN37. My strategy of just covering the bad part looks to be fatally flawed but covering the whole thing, tucking and stapling might be worth a shot.
I didn't realise you were just trying to cover a part of it !
Here's my reskinned dash pad , no idea on how much it cost . Here I was adding some more dye to it , but you can see all the staples used
This should give you an idea of what I tried to do. I don't know if any of the other interior colors have the two toned dash top but mine (smoke) does. There is a little groove between the two colors and when I patched in the light piece it I pushed it into the groove and it looked pretty good. Unfortunately the glue did not hold up and now I know why.
The dark part has already been painted with the SEM Color Coat and some of it came off when I cleaned the glue off the light part with acetone. I'll cover the whole thing this time around.
you can get a gallon at an upholstery supply for like 30. or ask an upholestery shop to sell you a water bottle full(they have like 5 gallon jugs)
But it is still at high risk of lifting at that edge. because its not fuily wrapped. you need to do it in 2 parts and sew a seam. the outmost faces where the door panels match are very tricky/impossible to wrap in one piece.
also, your dash looks surprisingly good haha. mine had huge cracks across the center that seperated and foam showing through, with the speaker holes deteriorating.
heres some pics i found of my cover. ill try to get more of the finsihed dash. you look closly you can see the seam where the original dash had the line indent.
i cant seem to find better pics on my computer of the finished product but it looks pretty decent(may e a lil puffier than oem because of the foam i put).
I talked to a couple of auto upholstery guys today and neither one of them is willing to recover dash tops, ahhh gotta love it. One of them did have a glue friendly vinyl with some stretch to it so I bought a couple of yards for the dash and some other pieces. I don't think I will put any foam underneath it though. The guy did give me an interesing tip. He a said that when he uses contact cement he lets it dry much longer than recommended, sometimes overnight. The he reactivates it by carefully warming it with a heat gun. Says it holds much better when you do that.
Ok so the dash top is looking good, I only recovered the rear portion from the groove backward.. What I did was have my wife, who is pretty good at sewing, stitch in some beading (aka piping) that I had from another car upholstery project. I used the 3M 90 contact adhesive to attach the vinyl to the dash but masked off the little groove on top where the bead would line up to. After that was done I used Gorilla glue to bond the bottom of the bead to the groove, the photo shows how I did that with a syrige and a large bore needle. Seems to have worked all bonding feels solid. I still need to paint both colors but that is the easy part, I thought showing the photos now will give you guys a better idea of what was done.
Dash top on a '77
