924Board.org

CMXXXI · Joined: 05 Nov 2002 Posts: 1939 Location: Vicksburg, MS

Well, I finally finished refurbishing an old dashboard and put it in. All in all, I think it looks pretty good. Not bad for my first project working with fiberglass. The dash I started with was equally as bad, if not worse than the one that was in my car (pictured below). I cleaned out the cracks, filled them in, put layers and layers of resin over the repairs and sanded between each coat. Then, two layers of 4oz fiberglass cloth and several more layers of resin on top once I got everything smoothed out. Sanded with progressively finer wet-n-dry up to 800 grit to take off the gloss and leave me with a matt finish. The project probably cost $30 in materials, but over 80 hours of labor, not including removal and installation.

Click the image below for my gallery of photos documenting the work
[url=http://66.140.203.89/~camaro/gallery/album31]

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'79 Eurospec 931

blargonator · Joined: 22 Sep 2004 Posts: 100 Location: kalamazoo MI

wow! that looks great

congratulations on a non-cracked dash <8- )

Neil924 · Joined: 18 Mar 2003 Posts: 4225 Location: Canada

80 hours?

It would have been cheaper/ quicker to buy one! WOW, you have some kinda patients. All in all, one haeck of a job.

jpab924 · Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:32 pm Post subject:

Nice job! Not enough time on my hands to tackle a project such as that. 80 hours you say...Hopefully someone will eventually come out with a reproduction dash. Untill then, its the plastic dash cover. None-the-less, good going and nice legs...

macBdog · Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 4:39 pm Post subject:

Yes very nice job to the max. Could you perform a similar repair with bondo and then paint it afterwords?
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1979 931 with a 350 chev
1973 911E with EFI

percy · Joined: 12 Feb 2004 Posts: 11 Location: London, UK

Professional looking job. Next time you are in UK and have 80 hours to spare, I might just have a little job for you.
I like your instrument dials - nice and clear. Are they standard? My 924 has an analogue clock in the middle of the set of 3.

CMXXXI · Joined: 05 Nov 2002 Posts: 1939 Location: Vicksburg, MS

The split dashboard has been the single most "embarrasing" part of my car for years. I could live with beat up faded paint and faded carpeting, but that dash just shouted "neglect". That is why I decided to spend the time and effort in fixing it the way I did.

MacB - I think Joe tried the Bondo method and if I remember his postings correctly, things looked nice for about a year. The issue with just filling in the cracks and smothing things over, is that the dash will flex, expand and contract with temperature and humidity. A filler in the crack won't hold things together. The spans of fiberglass cloth won't (or shouldn't) split, so I'm betting that this fix is a permanent solution.

I mixed in black pigment with the resin so the color is solid, nothing to scratch or chip off. I considered giving the whole thing a matte black painting when it was done, but thought that after some time, the paint might split with all the UV exposure. I considered giving it a light sandblasting to "texture" the surface, but a test showed that the blasting made it grayish-white.

The green faced gauges are OEM. The volt gauge died while I was still in Germany, and even the local VDO shop couldn't come up with matching face colors. I've never seen a green-faced VDO boost gauge and thought myself lucky to find a vacuum/boost gauge with the realistic 30" vacuum to 15psi boost. I'll live with the off-color faces (the center gauge used to be a clock).

As I said in the original post, I'm very pleased with the results especially considering this was my first fiberglass project. I don't recommend this repair as a starter project to anyone who hasn't messed with fiberglass before though. I'm considering re-doing the dash that came out of the car and offering to sell it, but because of the amount of labor involved, I'd have to ask upward of $300...
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'79 Eurospec 931

Joes924Racer · Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:44 am Post subject:

Nice job !

On mineI came back and did use resin and fiber glass mat ... How much did you use I used alot to get the to top level and I am still wanting to add more as I want it all level all the way from the back to the front this area of concern is over the guage pod. From the vents to the front over the guage pod theres a gentle dip I dont want that.. heres mine its been another year with no cracks. It plains out nice though there s a little dip that bugs me a little. No biggie.

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1979 porsche 924 Na
1980 porsche Turbo 931GT Replica
Have u ever driven a turbo.