Refurbishing a dash.

I have one of those steel frame wrapped in foam covered in plastic dash boards that has a crack in it. Think SAAB, very common with them.

Is/was there any articles in GRM or CM that covered this?

Suggestions graciously accepted.

Dan

as I am slowly looking at saab 900s... I am interested too. everyone I have seen has a cracked dash

"Firefox can't find the server at www.justdashes.com," so I don't know (& can't discover) how uninformed I am, but the Ford/GM/Mopar world uses them a lot. Is there a huge difference in dash construction between US cars and SAABs?

Stealthtercel wrote: "Firefox can't find the server at www.justdashes.com," so I don't know (& can't discover) how uninformed I am, but the Ford/GM/Mopar world uses them a lot. Is there a huge difference in dash construction between US cars and SAABs?

http://www.justdashes.com/

Worked for me

http://www.justdashes.com/ does a great job, but it's very expensive for non-mainstream cars - for instance, it costs around $1200 to have them re-do an e28 5 series BMW dashboard pad.

Can you get a plastic overlay? My BMW had one that looked stock. No restoration quality but perfect for a driver and it was only $50 on eBay. Looks like they're more expensive now.

From the inventor of the $50 Rustoleum roll-on paint job who inspired me to to my $50 roll on topside marine paint job, also has a helluva lot of ideas on repairing dashes:

Rickwrench: http://www.rickwrench.com/index79master.htm?http://www.rickwrench.com/alfadash.html

that worked better than I expected.. thanks Raze!

In reply to Raze:

Sweet!

Thanks for the heads-up; I have a new bookmark!

I've fixed cracks in my Fiero dash on the cheap when I was still in college. I undercut the cracked area to dig all the foam out, then filled the void with SEM flexible bumper repair epoxy. After the epoxy set, I sanded it smooth. It didn't have the texture (smooth instead of grained) where the crack was, but otherwise once you repainted the dash (if your dash isn't black) with some vinyl paint you couldn't tell. I recently got a Permatex vinyl repair kit that has some colors to mix, a few patches to help match the texture, and a hot iron...but I haven't tried it out yet. It seems like it should work pretty well for smaller repairs, but since I haven't tried it I have no idea how reality will pan out.

Bryce

if you use the spray on bedliner you can get the texture back, that was the neatest 'trick' of Rick's writup IMO...

What about flocking it after repair the cracks as described by Nashco? GRM flocked the dash on the Rally Saab a couple of years ago.

http://www.stateofnine.com/page/stateofnine/PROD/DashCover

Pricey, but the one that a good friend installed in his 900 notchback looks minty. You can see his install pics here:

http://s180.photobucket.com/albums/x155/foreversincebreakfast/Saab%20dash/

Remove dash add aluminum :

Digging the handlebars..... Or Jesus Bar?

I wrote a post about how I did it on my Land Cruiser over at ih8mud.com

This thread may have some additional info:

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/diy-dashboard-rebuild/12973/page1/