Interior Dash

Need some help...I want clean up the interior. I have looked into painting the side post, t-bar and back plates. How about the dash. It has no cracks but it just looks dirty in the pores. It's has silver interior. How hard is it to pull the dash to paint? Should I just by another one at $400.00 or is painting it a good idea?

Thanks for your help....

The issues about pulling the dash are more than technical, you unleash a can of worms that if you keep saying to yourself "I only want to do this once" you will have a huge time of it.


I am in this process right now. I can tell you this, if your dash doesn't have a crack in it before you take it out, it may after. Mine was cracked, I pulled it and during the process cracked it 3 times bigger than it was. I ended up repairing it so that a friend of mine couldn't tell, but I can still see the repair area.

My experience is that to install/remove the dash you have to bend it a little. I did my best to avoid bending (I also pulled the windshield so I had the best possible chance of reinstallation) and couldn't avoid bending it. This bending may also crack the underlying substrate that looks like it is designed to absorb your head in an impact, hense not too strong.

You will need to pull the entire dash out (I think it is best) and I couldn't get the driver gauge cluster out without pulling or at least dropping the column. You should find this easy to do after you loosen the decades of corrosion on the rag joint bolts.

I think maybe by now you might have second thoughts. I think that you may be able to tape and paint it installed, but it wont look right and might get messy since your working area is so small with the windshield installed.

Throughout my project I can say that if you take your time you can get things to look good, even if, like me, you have never done this before.


Attached is a photo of my repair and redone center console. You may notice a color difference. This is due to two different paints - both black. (I may tape and repaint the dash with paint used on the gauges, but to be honest it would be easy as the glass is removable.) Hint, paint all with the exact same paint.

Regards,

Bill

[Vette/Berlina-coupe]

-seems from your discription, that your black-plastic dash-panel portions are original and hopefully unpainted, --if so, and there are no adverse scratches, -just years of light accumulated wax/smog/smokers grit that makes it not appear as new? --then I found you just need to give it a really good thorough cleaning with some sort of spray-on liquid-cleaning agent (such as detergent "409"), -cleaning into all of the lil'crevices with cotton-swabs or similar means (using an old washed T-shirt for wiping-clean). Then when done, even redoing those areas needing further attention, --simply spray everything with Silicoln/aerosol-spray (such as widely available Pyroil -brand), -let sit for 10-min. (overnight even better) then just wipe-off any excess! --The silicoln is a great preservative/restorer for any resins in the old plastic, and will make it look like NEW while resisting accumulation of future grime (caution: do not use silicoln if you contemplate painting, -as just like grime, the paint won't stick!)... ~Bob vH

[mmvette80]

I used castrol super clean and a small brush. A tooth brush and a nail cleaning brush. Take your time and use the cleaner sparingly. Then use Vinylex by Lexol. This stuff is better than the rest and gives the car a nice almost new car smell.

[Pepe Le Pew]

I spray painted my dash and it looks pretty good. I really took my time and taped everything perfectly with masking tape. You really have to do some detailed taping. Then I got a good vinyl spray paint and sprayed several light coats, allowing the recommended time to dry between coats. The results were very good. The spraying was nothing. Its the preparations that takes a lot of time. You have to cover everything, Windshield, seats, steering wheel etc. Its an inexpensive option.

Kenny

[Bob Chadwick]

It's not hard to pull. As I recall, 5 screws from the passenger side lower panel, three from the driver's side panel, two from the center console and one underneath the dash that holds it to a brace. As others have pointed out, the dash has to be flexed and you run the risk of cracking very old and dry vinyl.

[paintdaddy]

I am doing this right now to a 74.The interior is alittle different but still basically the same.After alittle research,I figured out that this has to be done in a certain order for it to be easy.The center guage cluster comes out first,then the two lower dash pads,the pillar posts,and then the upper dash pad can be removed.This sounds like a pita to just redye your nold panels but it will show in the end product.