Anyone with a cracked dashpad ??

[triggerbilly]

Ok my dash pad has more wrinkles and cracks than ...... Well we'll not go into that !!
I just found this site .
http://gtam.silvahalo.com/dashrepair/

Anybody who has tried this method and got any pics, I'd like to see them. I think i'm gonna give it a go, so I'll be photographing it bit by bit
Wish me luck !!!

[fordman]

bedliner? sounds like a lot more work than buying a good new one.

[hazelnut]

At the price of a new one i would be trying the same thing if my dash wasnt cracked up like a dried up creek bed,give us some pics of your before and after when your done,im thinking about looking for a dash overlay and see how that would workout,but im interested to see how yours will come out for you,keep us posted

[triggerbilly]

I will do, could be a week or two though.
Kinda scared to even start taking the cab apart, keep imagining a brown recluse spider jumping at me !!
Anybody got any advice on how to kill everything in your bump that shouldn't be there !!! ?

[fordman]

bug bomb. i've never seen spiders in a turck this time of year though. i would also never bug bomb my truck either. that stuff is nasty and gets everywhere. i would want to have to clean up the residue either.

[Joe Kriston]

Your question reminds me of a dilemma I found myself in years ago...While driving home from work one hot day, I no sooner rolled up the window in my truck and turned the a/c on when a huge wolf spider went crawling up the outside of my driver's window...When I got home, naturally, I was scared to get out the driver's door, so I crawled out the passenger door with a blunt instrument in my hand, eyes peeled on the look out for this God-awful, ugly looking critter...He went crawling across the roof back toward the driver's door, and when I went around the truck---I lost him---where did he go?...Nowhere on the ground....Then my eye caught one of his legs inside the door crack above the window---my blunt instrument was to blunt to squish him in there...Then I did the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life (If you can't tell by now, I'm deathly terrified of spiders) and opened the truck door...Naturally, the lightning quick wolf spider crawled inside the cab instead of outside---and disappeared...

No way am I getting inside a truck knowing there's a wolf spider in there...So I did what every hard-working industrious man would do...I handed the keys to my wife and told her to take my truck and go to the store to get me a six-pack and a can of Raid...She got suspicious and when I told her what happened, said she was busy and that they were "just harmless little creatures that eat other bugs and stuff" and quit being such a wuss...I'll gladly take all those other bugs...I just want that ugly !@#$%^ spider outta there...So I used her car, got my sixpack and TWO cans of raid...I came home, gingerly opened the driver's door first and empied half of one of the cans of Raid on one side---under the seat, behind the seat, under the dash, on the dash, the windshield--- covered every square inch...Then the other side...

Fortunately, it was a Friday, and I didn't get into my truck all weekend, other than to empty the second can of Raid inside...I left the windows open all day on Sunday, hoping the little bastage would just crawl out and leave if he was still alive...Finally, on Monday morning,with a spider-killer towel in hand and after 30 minutes of mustering up whatever courage I could, I got in the truck, rolled down the windows, and slowly headed off to work, continuously looking over the cab for my little hairy friend...

He never surfaced again, and eventually, I forgot about him---until now...Good luck with your dash, and hopefully yours turns out well...If you could, I'd like to see better close-ups of the grain, or texture of the finished product...

[triggerbilly]

Cool story (I understood most of it !!) I think i'm gonna go with a bug bomb, the whole cab needs ripping out and cleaning headliner, dash seat etc. I wanted to put the seat cover in the washer but I couldn't find the courage to put my hand under the seat to undo the strings !!!
It's been parked up in a field just outside of Dallas for 6 years so there's gotta be some sort of wildlife in there (or am I just being over paranoid !)
Time for the rubber gloves I guess !!

[george worley]

When I was in the carpet installation business I had to haul away the old nasty carpet in my van, so I was always fighting bugs, roaches,etc. I never left the old stuff on my van over night or there would be roaches crawling everywhere in the morning. I would shut my van up tight on Sat.or Sunday morning every week and set off 1 or 2 bug bombs.
George

[fordman]

whats for dinner tonight? roach surprise.

[triggerbilly]

I'll let off my bomb then cook a nice scorpian chow mien !! THEN sort the dash pad !!

[1971ford]

Your question reminds me of a dilemma I found myself in years ago...While driving home from work one hot day, I no sooner rolled up the window in my truck and turned the a/c on when a huge wolf spider went crawling up the outside of my driver's window...When I got home, naturally, I was scared to get out the driver's door, so I crawled out the passenger door with a blunt instrument in my hand, eyes peeled on the look out for this God-awful, ugly looking critter...He went crawling across the roof back toward the driver's door, and when I went around the truck---I lost him---where did he go?...Nowhere on the ground....Then my eye caught one of his legs inside the door crack above the window---my blunt instrument was to blunt to squish him in there...Then I did the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life (If you can't tell by now, I'm deathly terrified of spiders) and opened the truck door...Naturally, the lightning quick wolf spider crawled inside the cab instead of outside---and disappeared...

No way am I getting inside a truck knowing there's a wolf spider in there...So I did what every hard-working industrious man would do...I handed the keys to my wife and told her to take my truck and go to the store to get me a six-pack and a can of Raid...She got suspicious and when I told her what happened, said she was busy and that they were "just harmless little creatures that eat other bugs and stuff" and quit being such a wuss...I'll gladly take all those other bugs...I just want that ugly !@#$%^ spider outta there...So I used her car, got my sixpack and TWO cans of raid...I came home, gingerly opened the driver's door first and empied half of one of the cans of Raid on one side---under the seat, behind the seat, under the dash, on the dash, the windshield--- covered every square inch...Then the other side...

Fortunately, it was a Friday, and I didn't get into my truck all weekend, other than to empty the second can of Raid inside...I left the windows open all day on Sunday, hoping the little bastage would just crawl out and leave if he was still alive...Finally, on Monday morning,with a spider-killer towel in hand and after 30 minutes of mustering up whatever courage I could, I got in the truck, rolled down the windows, and slowly headed off to work, continuously looking over the cab for my little hairy friend...

He never surfaced again, and eventually, I forgot about him---until now...Good luck with your dash, and hopefully yours turns out well...If you could, I'd like to see better close-ups of the grain, or texture of the finished product...

crazy story,
I would of started at one door and slowly but surely completely disassembled the interior bit by bit, until i KNEW that it was out of there.
I hate spiders

[papabug71]

Some of the MoPar guys I hang with are using some kind of resin to make dashpads. They will pick all of the old vinyl off down to the foam. Cover it with the resin & build it up. Then they sand it down to a factory look & paint it. No more cracked dash.

Some of the old MoPar dash pads are alot harder to find in good shape, thus the reason for the extra work. Not alot of aftermarket support, espically for the A body cars.

[Banjo]

I have to be honest, if money is an issue (like it is to me), you'd better leave it alone on there and cover it with something or ignore it. They make crappy little velcro rugs to poke on them and they make a plastic shell to go over them. the reason I say DON'T try to remove, those things aren't all backed like in most other cars, there are floppy unbacked rubber foam areas and you can flex and tear it up worse. I took mine off and drove bare metal dash for about a year and found a used one on ebay (stock one) in great shape for around $100. I could have resprayed it before installing and it would have looked even better, BUT....you change one thing and it makes the other things that are worn look even more worn and shabbier. So, I stuck in the somewhat faded black, uncracked dashpad and am a happy camper.
I had a Galaxie 500 and a Cougar dashpad "filled" and worked years ago and was very unhappy and both jobs were by corvette guys who swore they could make the repairs blend and disappear. Had a set of doorpanels done too, if I recall. That was back pre-internet and very few repro parts. In all cases, you could see the repairs and they looked like crap.

[triggerbilly]

OK
I removed my dashpad this morning, and my plan has now changed !!
As i started removing the pad it crumbled like ........ well like something that crumbles ALOT
and i also like the look of the bare metal dash. I cut the vent covers from what remained of the pad
and they sit on the metal dash real nice.

So no pics yet. Unless you wanna see pics of sun-dried dust on my garage floor !!

Oh yeah how the heck do you get at the two bolts at each end of the dash (just as it curls round) any advice on those 2
would be a help !

[austin]

hmm somthing that crumbles a lot how about a cheby