Dashboard Sun damage Repair

[Coupenut]

Does anyone have any idea about the cost and difficulty of replacing sun warped upper dash and grill sections of an E24 dashboard?

[John in VA]

I replaced the dash in my E28 with an uncracked one. Have you searched archives or inquired on the RF E24 forum or Big Coupe Groupe?

http://normgrills.net/bcg/
http://bimmer.roadfly.com/bmw/forums/e24/

[SharkD]

Pristine E24 dashes are harder and harder to come by... you might want to also check out the forums at www.bigcoupe.com (Roadfly is quickly slipping into 'Lord of the Automotive Flies' IMNSHO)

As for pulling the dash, Erik Brannfors, a racer in Pacific NW might have some tips, as he recently re-did the interior of his M6 racer. www.brannfors.com/~erik/

(I feel your pain, BTW -- my pristine 635CSi has two small cracks, whereas my beat-up E30 has a pristine dash.)

[AlfaEric]

What does the dash look like? I ran across this guy's writeup on an Alfa site.
http://gtam.silvahalo.com/dashrepair/. If anyone is considering trying this I could probably find the thread where he posted the process/product details.

---Eric

[SharkD]

What does the dash look like? I ran across this guy's writeup on an Alfa site.
http://gtam.silvahalo.com/dashrepair/. If anyone is considering trying this I could probably find the thread where he posted the process/product details.

Wow.

That might work. (Leatherique sells a kit of dash filler.) But jglaws might have one of the unfortunate 1987 M6/L6/highline coupes that featured a leather dash & if it wasn't replaced under the dealer warranty program a new dash is the only option.

[AlfaEric]

Wow.

That might work. (Leatherique sells a kit of dash filler.) But jglaws might have one of the unfortunate 1987 M6/L6/highline coupes that featured a leather dash & if it wasn't replaced under the dealer warranty program a new dash is the only option.

Here is something he posted when people asked about the products

Okay home depot get "great stuff" expanding spray foam. Next go to a auto paint store and get quart of ULTRA LIGHT body filler ( it's real fexiable). Next go to auto zone or kragen... what ever, you know. And get DUPLI-color truck bed liner in a aerosol can and DUPLI-COLOR vinyl & fabric paint. You may not need the paint but I use it at the SECOND to last coat of bed liner. It will even out the last coat of bed liner color. AND ALWAYS SAND IN BETWEEN COATS to keep the paint level, and it keeps it looking realistic too. Hope this helps!

and...

As far as surface prep, the first thing was to level all the cracks. This exposed a great deal of the original foam. When there is that amount exposed foam you will have a never ending gassing problem, so I used an old artist trick. Any art supply store has a product that is meant to protect your art from from being smeared. It's made by Krylon and its called UV resistant clear acrylic "fixative". This product sprays a very, very fine mist. I focused on spraying it in the cracks only. I did want a possible rejection issue later with the bed liner. This is "the key" to stabilizing the gassing. Then the spray foam over that. I realize that I didn't point out all the steps on the site. I didn't know it would be this strongly viewed.

With the amount of feedback he got, I'm hoping he will do a more thorough writeup later on.

---Eric