1971CorvetteII

I butted in on a different post about the upper dash, so I open this one to be polite ( haha )

honestly the only thing that was wrong with mine was the speaker grill area was cracked, not even bad enough to worry about,
Well I fixed that this morning, no using it now, you can clearly see I did a nice job on it. Peeled, tore, dismantled, destroyed a decent cover


There is one spot on passenger side right at the stitching that had a void behind the cover, working on something to fill that small area.

I laid the Elk over the dash and smoothed it out by hand to get an idea. I think it will turn out nicely.
Will be filling in the speaker holes as I don't need the front speakers, doing a radio delete, (rare option haha) and adding 3 gauges in that spot.
Will use Bluetooth speakers in back & just run off my phone. Keeping it simple
The top of dash looks really bad but the leather covers it up & is smooth. have to be careful stripping the cover to not tear the foam under it.
Took about an hour working gently on it.

Since these dashes are a bit difficult to remove & install (at least with windshield in) I am going to trim off about 3/16" off each side where the little points are, this should
make installation much much easier & you won't really notice it since the edges are tucked in fairly tight to the windshield pillars.
Plastic was already cracked so will make an aluminum crutch to help it.



I bought a piece of Elk hide/leather brownish in color, a bit to much red in it, going to use
it at this point.
Also have been dying my carpets as they had faded to an ugly orange, not sure how that happened as the car has been undercover & out of sunlight
Carpet on left has 2 coats of brown, if I bend the carpet back on itself I still see orange so another spray of dye will be applied as the carpet is bent back
to expose the the roots so to say.
Elk hide on right, I bought way to much, so I will most likely use it throughout the front area, pillars, upper pad, the inserts by the door pulls.
Hopefully it turns out fairly nice, if not it's not to big a deal as it's just going to be a driver.



picture of the ugly orange compared to 1 coat of dye, dramatic difference, you can still see a tint of orange on the left piece


costs
dye 3 bottles = under $20.00
Elk hide =$86.82
labor so far (guessing) 3 or 4 hours

1971CorvetteII

here is the final color of carpeting, still another coat to do on the 2 front pieces, & the 3 rear compartment doors came out decent
3 bottles of dye, some vinegar, & dish soap. = I'd say a cheap fix (under $20.00) & some time compared to purchasing new carpet



on to the upper dash, since it was cracked at some point that was my first area to address, my solution was to
put a crutch across a 12" section & clamp it together with small flat headed screws, I ended up using some scrap
perforated metal heated up with a torch to red hot and just pressing it into the plastic material, seems to have turned out
well & in addition I added hot melt glue to cover up the metal, between the foam on top & my Band-Aid the cover is rigid
again. while I had it like this I trimmed of just a small piece on each end so this will be much easier to install & if I ever
have to remove it I'll have a much easier time.



now on to the speaker holes = radio delete = gotta add $1000.00 to the value for that option
I used some .01 steel shim stock and fitted it to the bottom as a start = looks pretty ugly but serves
the purpose of support for filling the top side. jammed it under the 2 clips that attach to the windshield frame
& again hot melt glue to secure it in place.



on to the top side now.
I tried using pieces of different thicknesses of foam / rubber for the top side of the speaker holes = it looked like that wasn't going
to work very good, looking around for junk = looking, looking = 2 choices spray foam or caulk, asked wife what she thought &
she said foam so I went with caulk. I opened a tube and smeared a little with a popsicle stick ( yep I'm cheap ) it started going on
very nicely, filling in all the small imperfections from when the dash was assembled, lots of voids under the vinal cover that never showed up.
Needless to say I covered the entire top with caulk ( yep some of you are thinking bubba, I agree ) I watched a guy on mytube that used bondo,
luckily I didn't have any or I most likely would have used that, BUT the caulk went on smooth, had time to work it into all the imperfections
you never see & there are many, filled the upped corners of the speaker holes to help secure the metal pieces in place.
couple pictures to this point so far.
waiting for it to harden overnight & will hit it with a touch of sand paper to knock off a couple whiskers of foam that poked up.
As rough as it looks it is much smoother than what was there after I removed the vinyl covering & I think it might add just a bit of strength to the dash.
Don't need to bend it now to install, yesterday I test fit the shortened corners, slipped in easily and is perfect for a driver.




Cut a piece of hide for the final covering, trying to get a the minor bends out where it has been folded, guy suggested
a heat gun, wife had no clue I put it in the dryer, maybe a bit of steam might help I can pull on it gentle and it smooths
out, I'll just have to watch as I install it.

HOOAH

Outstanding. It will be interesting to see how it turns out. Great job on your dedication to fix the old one. I just bought a new one for my 69 and it hurt when i came to the payment page.

Terry

1971CorvetteII

yes i understand that price issue, I was a bit worried when I started peeling the top off, if I were still working I'd just spend the money for new parts, being I retired early at 62 and took
a good hit on SS I do as much repair as possible. I save a lot of money doing self projects but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet. Mines been in storage 12 years and I have
had to gut everything chasing mud dobbers, removed all body mount bolts #4s were toast, fixed them, complete fuel system that HURT to the tune of just under 2K, tank to carb (thanks Lars)
the next owner will have a cake walk if they ever decide to do a body off.
When it's back together I should have a decent driver, & checking all my numbers I see that everything matches, not bad for 52 years old
I'm banking on the radio delete option to drive up the value LOL

Appreciate the atta boy

1971CorvetteII

A little update to the dash, caulk dried until Sunday, the glorified bondo arrived also, jumped on that ASAP
I guess it like a bondo product but has additives to make if flexible. I can push on the dash and it's still soft
The Polyvance is a bit expensive but cheaper than a new dash.


I couldn't get the caulk as smooth as I wanted it so I tried the poly, adhered nicely, you can feather the edges


Filled in the low spots & blended in the high spots, dried in 10 minutes of so, hard to see in the photos but it smoothed
out very nice, will touch it up 1 last time tomorrow, let it dry good & then start laying the hide on it.


With hide & without




Hard part is done

carriljc

1971CorvetteII
Wow. Looks doable. Is this the area that you trimmed?

1971corvette

No I trimmed just a little bit off the pointy part. see picture where the little + is, I trimmed maybe 1/8" to 3/16 no more off each end, test fit & it slipped in easily just above that
small bracket on the windshield post when the hide is attached it will be a tighter fit but it will be so much easier. not sure why GM made it so close.

Greg

Looks like lots of work but a great save, brother.
At $450 for a new pad, they're worth repairing. Don't mean to hijack your thread but I just went through a similar situation on my '73 dash pad. Both speaker areas were badly broken too. I opted for a pair of 4X6 covers on Amazon for $8.00 and dyed them to match the medium saddle. Cut out the old cover areas out with my Dremmel, used JB Weld white marine expoxy to anchor the new covers, then dyed the epoxy to blend in as well.
Might not be NCRS worthy but it's a passable repair as far as I'm concerned and should look fine when installed. Total cost for materials was about $25.
Sorry, no "before" pics but you already know what they look like.
Still a couple tiny hair line cracks but I'm just going to ignore those.

1971CorvetteII

Greg, no problem, as far as I'm concerned your fix looks good.
450 plus 50 shipping (maybe) close to 500 = I'll tear mine apart and try at least.
I haven't seen anyone else attempt it so I enjoyed seeing yours.
I went radio delete as I keep saying gotta be a very rare option, add a few thousand dollars to the value. LOL
I deleted my speakers just because I like to hear the little motor hum out the back, going to add some Bluetooth speakers in back
& just run off my phone. After searching through all my stuff I didn't find an stock radio, had an aftermarket so I figured instead of
spending money on all of that (I'd save it for gas) haha.
cost wise I have $135.00 =lots of hide left over, will most likely try to wrap the windshield uprights & upper section so it all kinda blends a little better
My update today is the hide is glued on, still have to finish the ends, defroster vent is in place, have to fix 2 tabs once more
Should have spent another 30 bucks on another can of the polyvance I can see some slight bumps showing = good enough for a driver, the
next lucky person can pay for a new one if they want.
Not stock = don't care, just cleaned up and different. now to finish & get it going back together
I see below lots of dash information,

carriljc

Thanks. I'm gonna put it on my list of projects. That Polyvance sounds like the hot ticket. I plan to just use black vinyl and do the same trimming.

1971corvette

the cans are small 8 oz. I should have did another can to smooth out better, looking at the picture it looks pretty bumpy .
buying straight from Polyvance shipping is to much, found it on amazon's site the cheapest
Just take your time pulling the old one off, I wonder about just covering the existing vinyl if it's not bulging up, should work.

1971corvette

Finished, slipped in so easy with just a little trim on the 2 points on the ends of dash

Greg

Very nice!

Coronette

Wow! I am very impressed with your handiwork. That looks great!

carriljc

1971CorvetteII

I saved this link in my Favorites for my list of things to do. Just thought I'd ask how it's holding up after a few months?