Dash Pod "droop" repair (1 Viewer)

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WarDamnEagle

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I have had some inquiries as to how I repaired my dash pod vinyl so I thought I would do a quick write up. It took me two attempts to get it right. The first repair held for a few days in the house but I then put the pod back into the 75 and went out of town for 3 weeks. Upon my return and after 3 weeks of 110F+ daily highs I found that the repair had failed. The second attempt has now been subjected to slightly cooler but still 105F+ for over 3 weeks and it is holding fine.

So here are some starting photos.

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I noticed right away that it took quite a bit of force by hand to fold the vinyl and foam back onto the plastic but bought the best 2 part epoxy I could find (JB Weld, Plastic weld - leftmost stuff in photo). I decided to try it anyway so I rigged up a metal straight edge ($3 square I found at hardware store) and used the clamps I had on hand (which were way too big). As you can see from the photo of the pod reinstalled, the vinyl is too tight up against the plastic and you can see the facia screw at the top. At the time I decided it was good enough but since it later failed it gave me a chance to correct the positioning of the vinyl.

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So after studying the situation a bit I decided that perhaps either the foam or the vinyl had slightly shrunk over time and as the vinyl was firmly attached to the foam this was causing undue tension when I tried to put the foam/vinyl back into place. I think in another thread I had opined that the foam likely swells over time causing it to pull away from the plastic frame but I now think that was likely incorrect.

I then decided to carefully cut the foam away from the vinyl using a fine bladed box cutter so that I could glue the foam back down to the plastic frame with no tension coming from the vinyl. I also decided to try a different JB Weld product that I found. After gluing the foam down with the JB Weld shown (I used the same clamp set up) I then spent quite a bit of time pondering exactly where the vinyl should be and how much of a gap that would create that needed to be filled between the vinyl and the foam. Turns out it was quite a bit, maybe 1/4" in the widest area, and when I finally went for it I used a short plastic straight edge and actually just held it in place by hand until the 2 part epoxy set. Thankfully that only took 5 minutes or so and even more thankfully I got lucky with the positioning and it turned out OK. Prior to assembling the major straight part I dug some of the foam material out from each side and by using the same technique got them back into position as best I could. I did the sides in small areas, one at a time until I was satisfied. I also spread a layer of the epoxy over the foam all around the front opening as I thought that might help keep things in place over time.

Here's a few photos along the way and as it sits today.

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