Did some searching here. Found a couple threads that showed the dash stripped to metal. Has ony one finished one by filling in the holes with either metal or fiberglass. Interested in see in the finished outcome to help me decide on mine.
CK5
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dashboard repair
- Thread starter diyman
- Start date
I'd like to fill in the holes and shoot the dash with bedliner. Good texture and easy to keep clean.
So far my thoughts were to get a dash from my local pull-a-part to strip to metal and use fiberglass to fill in/cover all holes then paint either flat or semi gloss to match interior. From what others said about the metal frame being thin and flimsy I may have to build something to keep it in the correct shape. That was my main obstacle. Next concern is the speakers. Do I try to drill holes like the factory or include something for speaker grills?
I personally haven't heard about it being flimsy, but wouldn't doubt it. I did think it could be though, and thought about flaring those holes for strength, then taking on a solid metal "skin" over it. Spray-on bed-liner over that, or foam-backed material like vinyl or something.
Speakers... I'd cut round holes and put speaker grills over them. Utilize the stock in-dash mounting points for newer, high-end 3.5's.
This seems like it'd be the easiest glass job ever... Ryoken will correct me if I'm wrong I'm sure.
It seems like you could just stretch it over the metal dash pad frame and add the resin.
Ryoken will correct me if I'm wrong I'm sure.
Am I THAT bad?!?
ummm, yeah, pretty simple... grind the chit out of it, or blast it... put tape under the holes.. technically, your supposed to use an adhesive coat, but it's not necessary...
wet it out with resin, then i'd lay down some #4 cloth, work it from center out, plastic bondo spreader works well, add resin where needed..... then I'd put some mat for the next coat....
cdoggwsu
1/2 ton status
Check out some of the pics I posted here.
Now...this is by no means Ryoken quality, but I think it will end up being pretty effective. I wrapped the whole thing in stretchy cloth before hand but in retrospect that caused more issues than it helped. I also drilled 5/16 holes every 4 inches all over the surface to give the resin a little more bite and to hopefully keep it from separating.
For the speakers, I was thinking of either routing a lip into the fiberglass and insetting some grilles, or just drilling a matrix of holes like the original dash pad had. I covered up the existing speaker holes so I could do something a little less 80's looking than the original.
Now...this is by no means Ryoken quality, but I think it will end up being pretty effective. I wrapped the whole thing in stretchy cloth before hand but in retrospect that caused more issues than it helped. I also drilled 5/16 holes every 4 inches all over the surface to give the resin a little more bite and to hopefully keep it from separating.
For the speakers, I was thinking of either routing a lip into the fiberglass and insetting some grilles, or just drilling a matrix of holes like the original dash pad had. I covered up the existing speaker holes so I could do something a little less 80's looking than the original.
