Some pics I took along the way..




gorrila glue in hot water to lower the viscosity a bit for the syringe




pried open the covering after adding some water for the gorrila glue to catalyze with, then squirted a bit in side. It is still very hard to push through. Drops at a time, but it doesn’t take much as it does expand.








clamp set up ...being sure to spread the pressure among a greater area so as to not warp or damage the dash vinyl.
Clamped it down first....then IN with the clamp in the middle using some aluminum stock as backing.

 

I don't mean to hijack this very interesting post but will injecting glue into crack on a vinyl dash or pod, slow the process?

 

In theory it should slow further damage. Stopping movement and infiltration is necessary. It will get worse when there's an opening.
It won't stop deterioration from age. A long time ago, I met an engineer who worked for Porsche. He said the plastic breaks down over time because chemicals are added at the time of manufacture so it does just that.
I don't know if that is true or not, but with the amount of interior plastic I've seen fail in cars, there might be something to it.

 

^^You could try drilling small holes at the ends of the cracks so they don't continue to migrate.

That info on the plastic also sounds reasonable. I hate how it is just breaking down around me over the years....

 

that’s what I did on all of mine (small 2 inch crack ...1 inch crack in front of the Defroster vents.. )Just poke a sharp dental tool in at the end...then filled with the rest of the crack.

 

I tried all sorts of methods on my pod to cover..fill.. cracks but once I cycled the pod from the fridge to the hearth near the fire place (40 to 130 ‘F..mimicking the surface temp swings I see here) the vinyl would either push the filler up..or create a ridge when heated....or crack again when cooled. IMO The whole thing has to be covered and repaired as a unit i think. Unless you could melt an old vinyl record per say and fill he cracks and retexture it again...like welding and grinding down the weld.

i gave up and the pod is on its way to classic9

 

a bit better....

involved separating the foam vinyl from the metal plate underneath then heating and massaging the vinyl so it would stretch..then adding starbucks wooden stir sticks in layers under the area that was falling away. Once I had it close enough it was all glued back.

good enough. I’m not going to mess with the dash where it pulls away ( up)...unless I add a bit of filler and sand it “level”...im redying the dash black anyway, so there wouldn’t be much if anything to try and texture.

 

Hi Rob, what do you mean by pulling all the panels out? I have a cracked and split dash that I would like repaired/replaced.

 

It means disassembling the whole interior, starting with the steering wheel, then the pod, center console, etc to get the dash out. Then when its on the bench, it can be reworked properly.

 

Ok, I see. Car is disassembled already, Dash and the knee portion is out of car. I hope the split can be fixed. I think the cracks can be.