Stripped down my dash today and pulled the heater box... will strip that down tomorrow and see what surprises it holds.

Many year’s ago I installed a cap over my dash, when it first started to crack.
Since my heater core needs replacing I’ve decided to replace the dash cap with a new one.
When I careful disassembled everything, there were little pieces of plastic falling out everywhere.
As you can see in the pictures, the plastic support for the pad has also fallen apart... big sections missing.
The bits left are very brittle.
I thought it was only the pad that had issues because of UV exposure... the support doesn’t get UV exposure.

I’ll have to see if I can cobble it back together and reinforce it.

 

Hey, Spill, didn't know you had a stick! Awesome!

What's your questions?

 

Is it normal for the support to fail even though it’s not exposed to UV?

Are there aftermarket replacements (I haven’t seen anything)?

Assuming that I have all the pieces and can jigsaw puzzle it together, what are the recommendations for repair?

And yes, I love driving stick.

 

Get a professional epoxy. 3M, Upol, Kent, etc. Get some dry wall tape, the mesh with the little squares. V out the cracks and cut little strips for in them. Then once your level with the surface, put a strip or two of the mesh over the top. Apply the epoxy and work the little strips into the crack, put the larger strips down and work more epoxy over the top. Scuff the plastic first so the epoxy can get a good bite.

 

I don't think it's UV exposure as much as it is age. Plastics fail over time but no one makes the undercarriage or inside dash replacements. Best bet is what 2bit suggested or similar.

 

It sure is crumbly... as I glue two pieces together it breaks into another three pieces... chasing my tail on this... I’m trying to get enough to bridge all the gaps and get the mounting points, then I’ll take it out and reinforce the heck out of it.

I’m using a 5min 3M Scotch-Weld to piece it together, then plan on using a 30min high temp and vibration resistance version for the reinforcement.

 

What you may want to do is, just figure out what things are supposed to look like, and use some other material....... The old plastic is degraded beyond use.

 

That’s why I’m persevering with the bits I have... once I have it together (the shape), the reinforcement is going to be substantial... the old plastic will then only be a spacer between the new pad and the reinforcement.

The real bad deterioration seems to be confined to the upper portion... once you come down a couple of inches it isn’t so bad (brittle).

If you think about, this crumbling mess has been happily in place all these years... it’s only my disturbing it that’s caused it to fall apart.

 

Surrounding structure was likely keeping it in place...... It's a lot like termites in a wooden house. It looks fine, until the whole thing collapses.

 

The label off the original dash pad... it was made just under a month before my truck.
Even the paper is deteriorating;-)