interior pro's

Hi guys/gays I'm new to the site and must say what a great place this is, lots of info---Good job people!!!

I now have a question for all the interior people out there and hope some of you can help me out.

I am retro-fitting a dash from one car to another and must cut it to shorten the unit, I have done this and it is just strapped into place and looks great.

The problem now is how do I put the two parts together and make it look OEM, the dash is out of a newer car and has vinyl outside and a foam like material inside.

My thoughts were to insert some coat hanger type material into the foam center and push the two halfs together then fleece and resin the unit together, them remove it from the car and fibreglass the dash for strength on the outside from corner to corner and underneath, smooth it and have it re-covered with vinyl?????????????????

Will this work??       My one concern is, will the fibreglassing stick to the factory vinyl material???  Will the factory inner foam flex alot and cause the fibreglass to crack and fall apart causing the dash to cave at the two halfs?

Please help

Thank you

Sorry I do not, I need to get a new camera.

What do you mean?

Maybe I didn't explain it right?  Or are you saying what I planed will work?

fiberglass will not stick to the vinyl surface and will be a big disaster IMO if you try it that way. my suggestion is to try the procedure you describe, but first remove the vinyl surface then and fiberglass the foam. then you can re-vinyl once you are done with all the finish work. not really the way i would do it, but if you are on a time constraint it will work.

Please do explain what you would rather do, I would like to learn the right way.

I understand I will have to engulf the WHOLE dash and I'm ok with that, it'll just get re-covered with vinyl again after I'm done. I kind of thought I would have to remove the vinyl from the dash and will but its molded on pretty good so I'm not sure how to do that--any ideas???

I have NOT done this type of work with fibreglass before, just some minor body repairs with it.

what i would do? i would venture to say that even even in my crappy little part of the country, i have built more than most people ever have when it comes to this stuff, and i have fab work from 5 surrounding states (which includes marine work as well) and i dont even live in a big city man, so im glad you ask .

what i would do is this: fiberglass WILL NOT stick very well to that OE dash surface, so.....use it to your advantage. connect the two pieces together from underneath in any fashion you can think as best as you can  even if it is crude, at this point it doesn't matter. next silicon the seam together  with clear silicone and trim off the excess once its dry. make sure there is no way fiber glass resin can flow down the seam (smear a thin layer of silicon over the seam using your finger and let it completely dry if need be). next wipe down the OE vinyl surface with alcohol and let it dry. now you need to completely cover the dash (seam and all) with wax, layer and layer at a time until you have 10-12 layers of wax.

once that is done, glass over the whole dash with about two layers of matting. when cured you can pull the dash out. you will now have a crude "mold". clean the mold. by cleaning i mean, remove any wax stuck to it, or silicone at where the seam was and sand the inside of the entire thing with 300 or finer grit depending on how long you want to spend doing all the footwork ( the longer the better).

once sanded, wipe it all out with alcohol and begin waxing like before. this time wax twice as much, maybe 15-25 layers( the more the better). once the wax is cured, lay matting and resin inside your mold at least 3 layers thick. when cured seperate the mold from your new dash!

hold on though! because the mold was a quick and crude one, the dash will not be perfect and ready to vinyl. you will  need some sanding to be done to the "casted" part and there will be some areas that need a little body filler here and there. once you get it where your are happy, then you are ready for vinyl. because you are not painting and using vinyl, you can be much less precise in the surface finish. the shape is more what you will want to concentrate on. vinyl will show alot of imperfections so make sure everything is just right (although you dont need to worry about it being perfect for paint), and you will be happy with your new fiberglass (not fiberglass covered) dash.

that is the way i would do it.