droopy dash

[Mark McDonald <tomswift@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris, Arran, Roger,

Thank you all for your comments.  I figured there had to be some kind of metal
under there-- the visor on the '68 sticks out quite a ways.  Yet, I think Arran
must be onto something when he says heat probably made it that way.  However,
like Chris, I'm a little reluctant to try heating up my dash.  (It gets pretty
hot here in Florida, so I don't think I'll need a blow dryer.)

I was thinking of finding some kind of small jack-- 2 of them-- and placing one
under the driver's side and one under the pass. side.  Then I was going to
suspend or attach a 2x4 between them and slowly jack up the side that's
drooping and leave it like that in the sun for awhile.  But this seemed so Rube
Goldbergian I decided not to do it.

Has anyone taken a '68 dashpad apart?  (The visor part?)

Does the vinyl come apart from the metal backing?  Or is it one unit with the
foam poured on or around a metal core?  If it's the latter I'm pretty much down
to 2 choices: Rube's 2x4 solution, or leave it alone.

Thank you, Mark

Christopher Hoffman wrote:

> Roger, Arran and mostly Mark,
>
> There is metal under the dash pad. It is not simply a big vinyl coated foam
> pillow, and what tends to sag is the entire structure. It's a very long
> unsupported span for a thin dash visor (and the visor is even more prominent
> in '68 than '67), so the thing tends to just sink in the middle under its
> own weight.
>
> I would imagine you'd need to bend the sheetmetal framework under the vinyl
> pad to remove the sag.
>
> I would also be very leery of heating up 35-year-old vinyl... I would seem
> too easy to ruin a perfectly nice looking dash pad that way, not to mention
> baking the foam inside to a brittle state.
>
> Just my two cents... I don't have any suggestions to make it look new, but
> maybe leaving well enough along might be the best course of action (or
> inaction). Or maybe park the car upside down for 15-17 years and see if it
> rights itself? :) Seriously, I'd ask a professional (or keep hoping for an
> answer here from someone who's successfully fixed this problem in a '68)
> before trying anything, since it's not something you need to fix right away.
>
> Chris in LA
> 67 Crown
> 78 NYB Salon
>
> A. Foster (monkeypuzzle1@xxxxxxx) wrote:
>
> > Roger;
> > You left your cap lock on when you posted, it means that you were shouting
> > in the computer world. Mark's dash problem involved a drooping piece of
> > vinyl not a drooping piece of pot metal.
>