Dashboard recovering kit

[gazzol]

Hi guys, the top of my dashboard is cracked and I would like to recover it in leather. Does anyone know of someone who does a ready made set for the top and the instrument binnacle? Thanks in advance

 

[OCCoupe]

Do not do leather!!!

for starters if you have ever looked at a1990s-2000ish Ferrari on many of them you can see the staples that were exposed after the leather shrank and the glue failed. Ferrari used pre-shrunk leather and still had this failure. BMW experienced this when they attempted leather dashboards.

you can buy pre-shrunk leather and you can also try to shrink it even more by putting it in the trunk of your car and letting it sit out in the hot sun for a week or so; but this isn’t going to do it.

If you have ever attempted to install a dashboard in to an e9 you will know that the tolerances are very tight. Leather would make the job even harder if not impossible. This added to the fact that the dashboard has spent the last 50+ years receiving some sort of treatment to keep it shiny only guarantees that the glue will fail to keep the leather from shrinking back and failing. There was a person in the e28 forum that failed to take my advice and ended up producing a leather wrapped e28 dash using old dash cores. He had to buy back most of them.

There is a black vinyl backed in fabric mesh that the Porsche guys use to redo their dashboards. The vinyl is thin and compresses easily. The grain is a near match to the grain on thr e9 dash and looks great. Whoever does your dash will need to back fill the cracks with jbweld and then reshape the dash keeping the added thickness of the new material in mind.

I had my dash covered in the vinyl and it was a tedious process and made installing the binnacle a tricky task. It looked great and continues to look great.

 

[adawil2002]

I have had Just Dashes do one of mine. 14 week lead time & may be more expensive than in 2018. They repair & re-vacuum form with vinyl grain close to original it looks very "factory" original.

 

[Dan Wood]

I have had Just Dashes do one of mine. 14 week lead time & may be more expensive than in 2018. They repair & re-vacuum form with vinyl grain close to original it looks very "factory" original.

We used Just Dashes also. Expensive, long leadtimes, and late to schedule. However, i would use them again. Very high quaity. We were going to have them do the 2002 except for the leadtime. Probably will schedule it for next year.

 

[Dick Steinkamp]

I had Coupe KIng recover the one in my Bavaria...

Half the Just Dashes cost. It is not exactly original looking, however. There are seams where the various pieces of vinyl are joined. The seams are necessary in order to cover the tight bends in the dash without wrinkles. I like the seams, however, and feel it gives the dash more of a custom, high end look. With an E9, however, controlling cost is not as important as with an E3 due to the E9's rising value, whereas originality is usually more important than with an E3. In both cases, however, it is a job I would not tackle myself...and I'm fairly handy.

 

[gazzol]

I actually like the bespoke look with The seams etc.

 

[autokunst]

@Dick Steinkamp that looks beautiful and well done.

 

[merdad]

I tackled dash recovering a few months back, since we don’t have an outfit like Just Dashes. It turned out okay, but next time It’ll be much better.

I removed the existing vinyl. I sanded the foam to allow for the 2mm condensed foam and the new vinyl, so the final thickness would be as close to original.

I then deepened the cracks, joined them with nails (??), and covered them with rubber silicone, and a bit of bondo.

I also used screws for the attachment (ones for moldings). The ones on the center were easy to tie down through speaker hole and instrument cluster removed. On the edges were a bit of work, but doable.

I glued the new foam with the help of a heat-gun on the curves.

I also ran a tie wire on the top to give it a sharp line (since just the foam would have created a curve).

Glued the vinyl.

All of this took a long hard work.

 

[merdad]

I tackled dash recovering a few months back, since we don’t have an outfit like Just Dashes. It turned out okay, but next time It’ll be much better.

I removed the existing vinyl. I sanded the foam to allow for the 2mm condensed foam and the new vinyl, so the final thickness would be as close to original.

I then deepened the cracks, joined them with nails (??), and covered them with rubber silicone, and a bit of bondo.

I also used screws for the attachment (ones for moldings). The ones on the center were easy to tie down through speaker hole and instrument cluster removed. On the edges were a bit of work, but doable.

I glued the new foam with the help of a heat-gun on the curves.

I also ran a tie wire on the top to give it a sharp line (since just the foam would have created a curve).

Glued the vinyl.

All of this took a long hard work.

BTW,
I never screw the instrument cluster cover to the top dash. It makes the instrument removal much easier and without damage to the inside of the cover.

 

[Dick Steinkamp]

I tackled dash recovering a few months back...

Beautiful work!

 

[merdad]

Beautiful work!

Thanks

 

[Wladek]

I removed the existing vinyl.

Can you please tell with what technique you separated vinyl from foam, so was no major damages on the foam & it's shape?
What tool did you used? Was dash pre-heated?
Thanks

 

[merdad]

Can you please tell with what technique you separated vinyl from foam, so was no major damages on the foam & it's shape?
What tool did you used? Was dash pre-heated?
Thanks

Very basic and primitively. I cut the vinyl at the sharp edge on the top with a razor blade, and ran the long blade between the vinyl and the foam to separate them. Did the same at the bottom. sometimes the front curve came off easily, other times, I had to separate it with the blade, and braking the vinyl off. In one area a bit of a foam came off, and I bonded the area and sanded it to shape. I wasn't worried about the bondo cracking since I was using a foam on top of it.
It was the first time I did this, and had to make fixes along the way. There maybe a more efficient way of removal, like with a heat gun.
I should also mention that I used nails at the ends, gluing them into the foam, so that I would brake the ends off while stretching the foam and vinyl. This was also one area that the vinyl did not come off perfectly, and had to use bondo and shape it.

 

[gazzol]

Thanks for all your replies, I was hoping that someone would do a kit so as to save me some time but it looks like I'll be doing it myself.

 

[boonies]

Wow @Dick Steinkamp, Coupe King’s work looks great! May reach out to them for my dash.

 

[Bmachine]

I tackled dash recovering a few months back, since we don’t have an outfit like Just Dashes. It turned out okay, but next time It’ll be much better.

I removed the existing vinyl. I sanded the foam to allow for the 2mm condensed foam and the new vinyl, so the final thickness would be as close to original.

@merdad out of curiosity, why did you feel you had to remove the original "vinyl"? I'm about to embark in the same process so I took a sample out of mine today (it comes off really easy with a heat gun, btw) and it appears to be some type of very thin plastic that almost seems to have been melted on top of the foam. It is very hard (likely in part due to aging) and very thin, I measured it at .68 mm. So I'm really not sure there is any advantage in removing it, especially since the foam underneath has become brittle with age and this vinyl/plastic is now holding it all nicely together. Especially at both outside ends which are very fragile.

This plastic covering is so thin I don't think the difference in thickness will make any difference. On this particular dash, it doesn't seem to be many areas where the thickness is absolutely critical down to the millimeter. The new (real) vinyl measures about 1.4mm and I don't see where this could be critical.

 

[merdad]

@merdad out of curiosity, why did you feel you had to remove the original "vinyl"? I'm about to embark in the same process so I took a sample out of mine today (it comes off really easy with a heat gun, btw) and it appears to be some type of very thin plastic that almost seems to have been melted on top of the foam. It is very hard (likely in part due to aging) and very thin, I measured it at .68 mm. So I'm really not sure there is any advantage in removing it, especially since the foam underneath has become brittle with age and this vinyl/plastic is now holding it all nicely together. Especially at both outside ends which are very fragile.

This plastic covering is so thin I don't think the difference in thickness will make any difference. On this particular dash, it doesn't seem to be many areas where the thickness is absolutely critical down to the millimeter. The new (real) vinyl measures about 1.4mm and I don't see where this could be critical.

Due to cracks. Before I did this, I had an upholsterer repair the cracks without removing the original vinyl and the recover with new thin vinyl. It looked great for a while, but eventually the cracks underneath appeared under the new vinyl. Maybe it wasn’t installed correctly and caused the crack. Thought the instrument shroud and the bottom section stayed perfect. This a picture of when it was first done

 

[Bmachine]

Ok. That makes sense. Luckily I don’t have any cracks. However I want to fill in the nasty area where the US cars had the Fasten seatbelt sign. Because of that it might indeed be better to remove the old vinyl.

 

[HB Chris]

Bo, Someone modifies those to house a digital oil pressure readout, right up your alley!

 

[Bmachine]

Bo, Someone modifies those to house a digital oil pressure readout, right up your alley!

Haha, thanks Chris. But I am almost done building my Paul Cain oil pressure/voltmeter gauge to replace the clock. (Yes, I know, he had oil pressure/temperature)