Dash repair…solid maybe!?

[Highnote1]

Hey guys. 
Wanted to pass on. My car is away for paint and thought I would try something. The concept of filling dash cracks with bondo never made sense to me for longevity so I found an article on someone using flexpaste and thought I would give it a whirl. 
 

This is only after one filling of the stuff but it does feather out after a few days and it is completely flexible and appears to have adhered well. 
 

I don’t have a before pic but you can see how baked this dash was by the amount of repair.  It’s all one piece again as a starter. Plan would be to fill again, sand, and some sort of light texturing and paint. 
 

I have a cap for it but thought I would try…even now, it’s better than it was!

[tzei]

I did mine with bondo (and had same doubts). Surprisingly it have hold better than i expected. Flexpaste sounds like a good idea. I might try that when it’s time to do another.

[JWT]

Man, I love this idea.  Please make sure to post after pics.  Right now it look like it will work VERY well!!

[esty]

how do you get the vinyl grain back in the sanded areas?

[Highnote1]

I will try this sem rock chip very lightly applied. We will see! I have nothing to lose. Check out the link and video. 
 

How to Use Spray Grain for Vinyl or Leather Repair?

RUBNRESTORE.COM

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Trying to learn how to use spray grain to improve your vinyl or leather repair can be tricky. Check out a...

 

[Stevenc22]

I fill all the cracks with 5 minute epoxy. The foam soaks it in like water and it seeps and strengths the whole area. Because it seeps, the crack will still have a low spot, that i come back and fill with super glue and sand. Bondo would work fine as well.

[JWT]

On 5/13/2024 at 8:19 AM, esty said:

how do you get the vinyl grain back in the sanded areas?

Hand Painted! Actually its just the "Euro" dash, so its a smooth finish - don't you know Esty!!???  😇😆

[fredhamm]

1972 BMW 2002Tii dash

I recently paid a guy who does leather and dash repair to repair my dash, i delivered the dash to him. He used vinyl bondo on the standard two cracks one ether side of dash surround, he did a poor job of the finish and painted the whole dash flat black vinyl paint, i have seen similar utube videos of this process on extreme dash conditions. He left edges, he used a very fine mesh like  fiberglass process on large crack i know this because i sanded away and chipped away 60% of the bondo and exposed the mesh. After i removed all the paint with denatured alcohol this distillant because its impact on vinyl was minimal, I smoothed out rough spots with filler bondo and sanded smooth. I attempted to add vinyl texture. I painted the top part of the dash only i used Satin Vinyl Paint, Simi gloss a little to shinny. The area that was repaired shows flat sanded areas with relief and some texture attempted. Basically if you have a dash that is as bad as the example in this story then sanding entire vinyl dash to a more flat non vinyl look and applying vinyl paint to entire dash will result in a more consistent finish. I installed dash and during the install hair line cracks exposed themselves, minimal you have to look close to see it, but the mesh part is holding up nice. I called " Just Dashs" in L.A. earlier this year got a quote, earlier threads talk about cost at $450 three four years ago and up to $750 two years ago, my quote $2500 and 7 week wait no glove no steering atop pieces - add more cost to estimate, also a guy in San Diego repairs dashes using stitching dash vinyl  he also works on 356's that can sell for $300k he will stich a 2002 dash for $3000. Your on the right path with this dash like auto body work sand flat smooth and vinyl paint.

 

Edited May 15 by fredhamm

[JsnPpp]

Seriously looks great Fred. Nice work.

[Highnote1]

Starting to feather out nicely.  Couple of low spots to go back in for another pass. 
Still a total of one half tube of flex seal invested…

 

 

Edited May 19 by Highnote1

[Highnote1]

End result. Solid b minus. 😂😂

Better than it was by a lot…but still hoping MVP comes through at a good price!

 

 

[JsnPpp]

Much better than it was. Very usable. Nice work.

 

Do you feel you could have elminated those lines with a bit more block sanding?

 

Since you can easily spot repaint, you can try some more sanding on the areas you see the most.

[Highnote1]

19 minutes ago, JsnPpp said:

Much better than it was. Very usable. Nice work.

 

Do you feel you could have elminated those lines with a bit more block sanding?

 

Since you can easily spot repaint, you can try some more sanding on the areas you see the most.

Yeah…I think so. I honestly thought the rock chip would have been a thicker texture and cover up more, but honestly it’s a pretty fine spray and I would totally use it on other parts. 
 

My problem was that is was so toast, after sanding back the cracks, the dash still had a rise from far out from the crack so it was hard to get it flat. It looked like it had almost bubbled from within, ala alien style. 😂 Hard to get it flat with any filler. 
 

Best pic I have of before. 
 

 

[TobyB]

I have some Sugru that I really want to try for this- it's supposed to stay flexible, which seems like an idea...

 

The problem with any hard system (epoxy, bondo, etc) is that the rest of the dash floats a bit.  Temperature changes,

age, humidity, phase of the moon. high and low tides, etc.

So the hard system will force that movement into the rest of the dash- and this will lead to more cracking, eventually.

 

Plus, the dash, like me, is nowhere near as flexible as it once was.

 

Time to start scanning, and print an entirely new cover out of TPU.

We've all got 2 meter 3d printers out in the back room, right?

 

t

 

[esty]

Toby, Sugru doesn't work any better/worse than anything else that's ever been tried...movement and flex will soon make waste of all the hard work....been there, done that with a lot of products, nothing lasted even a 'reasonable' amount of time