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Best Crack Repair Without Removal of Dash???


Guest Anonymous

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Guest Anonymous

As the season starts to wind down, I'm thinking about Fall/Winter projects. One of the few remaining cosmetic issues with my car after nine years of tinkering, is getting a better dash crack repair. My car is decent, but I refuse (at this point) to pull the front window and dash, tempt the electrical gods with re-connections and drop $900 plus to get the annoying crack repaired by the send-away place, who I do understand does beautiful work.

So my question to all the interior experts out there is, what's the best way, or is it even possible, to get a 3-5 year repair that will look respectable. I've tried filler and medium gloss black paint and that cracked in a year, and then for several years, I've just used two inch black electrical tape over the crack (that is much better than nothing), but now I'd like a more long term, better looking solution. Any recent, good experiences or suggestions? Thanks in advance.

__________________________

Roger

'72 Malaga

RBenson685@aol.com

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There are products now available which were developed for the flexible plastic bumpers & fascia's made now which are both hard and flexible and these 2 sites show how they can be used:

http://gtam.silvahalo.com/dashrepair/

http://www.finkbuilt.com/blog/cracked-dash-repair/

Good luck and let us know how you make out!~

Is fuel efficiency really what we need most desperately? I say what we really need is a car that can be shot when it breaks down.

- George Carlin

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Yeah. Actually it's a serious question and I was not being very fair. Apologies to the OP.

OTOH I still think the best solution is replacement.

Cheers,

Ray

Ray

Stop reading this! Don't you have anything better to do?? :P
Two running things. Two broken things.

 

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About 9 years ago, not too long after I bought my 02, I tackled this problem. My dash had the typical major cracks at the usual locations and a number of minor cracks at other spots. I did a search and found a guy in my area who did leather/vinyl repair. Unfortunately, I do not have before and after pics, but I can provide current pics.

He did the repair with the dash in the car. Basically, he filled in the cracks and put a piece of fiber-like tape over each crack (kind of like the fiberglass repair process...). Then, he smoothed over the tape with a finishing filler, and sanded that down. The final step was painting the repaired area with a textured vinyl paint.

Almost a decade later, some of the repaired spots are looking a wee bit ragged. See attached pics for a view of the area of the primary crack along the instrument panel "pod," which needs a bit of touching up. The side view of the dash shows that it still looks pretty good. None of the cracks are that apparent under most lighting, but you can see the main crack pretty clearly under the camera flash. But, all-in-all, I am pretty happy with the job. I think he charged me something like $125.

post-185-1366761108457_thumb.jpg

post-185-13667611086214_thumb.jpg

Chris B.

'73 ex-Malaga

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Guest Anonymous

Thanks for the helpful advice. I'm going to give the two-part epoxy product a shot, and will provide a crack report next spring.

____________________________

Roger

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