My plastic dash has suffered sadly from breaks, cracks and general decomposition over the 26 years that I have had this car. When I opened it up recently I found that some of my old repairs had unrepaired themselves. I decided to "do it right" this time and hopefully I'll never have to do this again. I thought I'd pass along what I did to help others with similar problems.

Starting from the left. Years ago I was driving on a washboard dirt road (entrance road to Carlsbad Raceway) and heard a "pop", followed by "squeak, squeak, squeak". The left top dash mount had broken completely away from the nut and washer that held it to the pillar. I put in a carefully fitted piece of .062" (that's 1/16" for you non-metric folks ;-) sheet metal and used J.B. Weld to glue it all together. It fits tightly in the sunken area and the headlight switch nut helps hold it in place. Note the small notch below the headlight **** in the lower left corner for the nut clip that a dash bezel screw goes into.



This hole is where the left brace that goes to the base of the windshield mounts. This is above the tach in the cluster. As you can see there are major cracks in that area. I think this damage was caused by the loss of support from the left stud, above. I repaired this years ago but the J.B. Weld didn't stay stuck to the plastic. I don't know if that's because of the smoothness of the plastic, mold release or whatever. This time I sanded it thoroughly with 50 grit sandpaper to give the epoxy something to grip. I didn't take a picture of the aluminum afterward because since I repaired it I put the cluster back in and I didn't want to take it out for a picture. You can also see that the dash pad mounting hole is broken. The different-looking area around the hole is Plastex, which obviously didn't hold up.



This is looking down through the windshield at the center part of the dashboard. This is the center left dash pad mounting hole. I put a piece of masking tape under it to create some contrast. The dull area is Plastex, which broke. I glued a small piece of aluminum under the center right hole (not shown), but it came loose from the plastic.



After thorough sanding with 50 grit sandpaper, I put a piece of aluminum across the whole center area. It came from an aluminum extrusion that was part of the threshold when the front entry doors of my condo were replaced. It has a lip on it that is the exact thickness of the plastic dashboard so it fits very nicely. I painted it black on the underside because there's a gap between the dash pad and the center cluster and it's visible from inside the car (one of the things that bothered me from the previous repair). This is looking down through my old pitted windshield :-(. I put masking tape on it to avoid scratching the paint with the clamps. Lots of clamps because I wanted to make sure this thing is really really on there. I also drilled some holes (slightly countersunk on top) in the plastic because I thought the J.B. Weld squishing up through the holes would help make it a solid repair.



In the center cluster is a mounting hole for the switch panel/status light display. This hole broke out, apparently because the tapered mounting screw wedged it apart. I found this copper ring at Lowe's for less than a dollar. It's called a 3/8" copper coupler. It's used to join sections of copper pipe together. It was 3/4" long and I had to cut it down because the plastic gets larger in diameter as it goes down into the dashboard. The blue box is the chime module that makes noise for lights on, etc. The large yellow wires going downward on the right go to the VATS starter relay, which mounts on a slideout piece that usually sits next to the chime module. The thing with numbers on it is the horn relay, which mounts in a clip on the slideout piece.



This is the right hole for the brace that goes to the base of the windshield. I repaired this several years ago and it seems to be holding up well. In the background on the front wall of my garage, a lovely view of my Harbor Freight grease gun and the old serpentine belt that was on my car.



This is the right end dashboard mounting nut, with aluminum reinforcement. I put this in several years ago. Looks OK so I didn't mess with it. Right above the stud and nut is a hole for a screw to go into the dash pad. I read somewhere that this screw is almost never installed at the factory (mine wasn't).



This is the rear hole in the right side bezel that goes around the fuse panel. Custom fitted aluminum and lots of clamps. Masking tape under the clamps to avoid marking the bezel. Speaking of fuse panels, here's a tip I read about somewhere: the nut that the fuse panel cover **** screws into can be popped out (actually IN -- it goes into the hole from the inside) and turned 90 degrees. It makes it infinitely easier to get that **** back in there.



With the clamps off and the side window defrost grommet back in:



The right side bezel front mounting hole also had a crack through it (the white line at the bottom and up through the mounting hole). The angled ridge is supposed to go into a locating hole in the dash. I think if it's not in the hole and you tighten the screw it breaks the bezel.



I needed to replace my shifter cable and found this when I took the center cluster apart (both sides were broken):



These are the right and left reinforcements that I made. The black parts sitting on top of the aluminum are the broken pieces that I used to draw the templates.

 

- good, informative post.

 

So is the dash repair finished and holding up well or still in progress? Looks like you are/were doing a lot of nice work and reinforcing it much better as well. It is amazing all of the little plastic pieces that can crack and break!

 

With JB Weld, duct tape and WD40 anything can be handled.

 

Good temp fixes! Unfortunately you just moved the stress points so eventually the whole panel will crack. A good solution would be sending the repaired panels to, the forum vendor that wraps them in carbon fiber. That would make the panel stronger and last probably longer than the rest of the car. It's a little costly but worth it in my opinion.

 

Printed out and put into the folder

 

Nice write up Cliff! Your pic of the LH side fix looks exactly like what I did. I am presently using JB weld to reform some broken and missing screw holes on my center dash bezel. Slowly but surely you can rebuild everything, sand it down and spray with some semi flat black and its hardly noticeable.