Dashtop

lukewilliam1_75

lukewilliam1_75

Member
So a few months ago i replaced my dash top, i now have 2 cracks in it, it was an older one out of an interstate rover, if i where to pay the $300 to get it re skinned would the same occour, or is it just becuase the other 2 were 40 odd years old?
 
Hi Luke it is purely the age and the amount of cumulative UV that does it, if you look at my thread from a week ago there are some photos of the vinyl that the NZ company uses to reskin dashes any 2nd hand dash will be very likely to do the same in short order as they are very much time expired now.

Graeme
 
Not only UV is at play in the ageing process, but exposure tothe atmosphere itself. You will notice the material beneath the Dashtop hardening , cracking and falling out as a yellow powder; the same happening beneath the seats. It is the inevitable return of man-made materials to their chemical components.
Good to replace all of that.
 
Hi Luke,

I'd ask a Motor Trimmer what are his thoughts on having it recovered. Probably best to remove it first. You'll need to move the instruments forward so you'll have room to slide your hand in behind in order to release the fixings otherwsie hidden, and there are lots of them!!

Ron.
 
series 2 dashes always seem to crack in the same 3 places so if you have them its unlikely to spread to other spots very fast. I got mine proffessionaly repaired about 6 or 7 years ago, It ended up looking like crap and the cracked points soon became noticable afer a short time of a few months. If you get a repair it will never look like origional and you will always be dissatisfied (as I was) with it. I can tell you straight up that there is nothing more depressing than something that does not look 100% in an other wise nice interior space.
I was lucky enough to get an uncracked replacemnt dash top due to the good spotting of Kiwirover on this forum, whilst it's not 100% perfect (yet) it's far more relaxing to sit behind an undamaged dash.
Unless you can find a good second hand dashtop I would be inclined to look at a reskinned one, something that I might yet do.

Dash top removal is very straight forward, as Ron suggestsyou need to move the instrument panel toward the steering wheel a ways and may have to disconnect the odd wire to get enogth forward movement, then it's just a simple case of loosening the 5 retainng nuts, the one right in behind where the clock sits is hard to see.

Graeme
 
My dash first split in 1999, and I had it repaired here in Christchurch, however I was never completely satisfied, and the repair has since failed. The crack is about 2 inches long and for now I've had success at halting its advance by drilling small holes at the ends of the crack. Meanwhile I've had some fruitful correspondence with this crowd here:

http://www.dashboardrestorations.co.nz/

Over the phone they assured me that they can match the texture, and I have seen some wonderful examples of their work. Therefore my plan is to suck it up and hand over the readies to have the dash reskinned at some point.

Luke, for the cost of post you could even consider sending your dash over to Dashboard Restorations. They appear to take on a lot of overseas work.
 
WarrenL said:
My dash first split in 1999, and I had it repaired here in Christchurch, however I was never completely satisfied, and the repair has since failed. The crack is about 2 inches long and for now I've had success at halting its advance by drilling small holes at the ends of the crack. Meanwhile I've had some fruitful correspondence with this crowd here:

http://www.dashboardrestorations.co.nz/

Over the phone they assured me that they can match the texture, and I have seen some wonderful examples of their work. Therefore my plan is to suck it up and hand over the readies to have the dash reskinned at some point.

Luke, for the cost of post you could even consider sending your dash over to Dashboard Restorations. They appear to take on a lot of overseas work.
Click to expand...


Warren if you want to see some of there samples I have them here
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14875&start=15

Graeme
 
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