Dashboard cover
My Cadillac came from Texas in 1995. It must have been quite hot there as the dashboard cover had ugly cracks.
This is the right side with a big crack above the glove compartment ..
.. and this is the left side, showing an ugly crack like a spider's web above the instrument cluster.
The dash cover has a frame of hard plastic with foam cushions, covered with a thin vinyl skin. I tried to get the vinyl off but it stuck to the foam.
I had taken the dash cover to several shops. The lowest estimate was $300 +tax and they could only cover it with leather. This would require a lot of seams and they couldn't guarantee it would look good. I was not excited.
So I gave it to a guy who does upholstery as a hobby and would try to do it with vinyl. He came up with a large sheet of vinyl which looked very promising. As it turned out it was a lot more difficult than expected. The season was only a few weeks away and the dash cover still wasn't finished. I gave up, took it back and sat there with a half-finished dash cover.
At that time the vinyl was glued to the larger flat areas, with all the tricky work still to be done.
The new vinyl is quite thick, about 1.3mm. The top side is dyed black and it has a texture like leather. There are no embedded fabrics. When heated with a hot-air gun or a hair dryer this stuff gets surprisingly soft and can be stretched and wrapped around corners. I learned that too much heat will melt it, stretching in an uneven way creates wrinkles and streching too much makes the texture look strange. I also learned that hot plastic burns your fingers.
The only glue I found to work reliably is cyanacrylate, the stuff
sold in little plastic containers. It looks and flows like water but will glue your fingers together in a fraction of a second. I worked very slowly and very carefully. The most difficult parts where around the opening in the center for the air condition and the slots in front of the windshield. Working two or three hours every evening this is the result after almost two weeks:
This is the dash cover installed in the car, the A-pillar covers are still missing. In the daylight some imperfections can be seen. I assume this is what they call an "amateur restoration."
Given the fact that I have never done any upholstery work before I find the result quite satisfying. At least its not bad for a left-handed programmer :-)
The 'chrome' around the border of the center vent was faded:
A small brush and a little chrome-effect paint makes it look a lot better.
Now what's left to be done are the A-pillar covers ..
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1999/06/07