In the process of repairing the major cracks in the dash pad of my 80. First thing I did was Dremel out the major cracks and remove the raised surfaces around the cracks. I may have made the cracks much wider, but I needed to get rid of the raised surfaces:
Then I epoxied the ends of the large cracks where it had completely split the dash pad, sturdying the whole unit to be ready for Bondo. Next I used Bondo Fiberglass Resin Jelly to fill in the gaps on the board , sanding it after about 30 mins. After the first round of sanding I made sure not to burn thru the thin dash pad around the edges of the Bondo getting it flush. I noticed I still had some indents in the dash so I redid the whole process to make it perfects as far as I can tell. ( excuse the indoor pics , I have no garage and it's raining in LA )
After getting all the Bondo flush and perfect with the rest of the dash, my plan was to primer and paint it.
Do I need a special type of primer to stick to this plasticy dash or will regular exterior sandable rattle can primer work?
Also I need to find a way to replicate the "skin" look of the dash in the bondo areas where it's been smoothed. A thought I had was to take some vinyl from a thrashed door panel and use it as sort of a "stamp" in the paint once it sets a bit and is in the gooey phase of drying . See pic below:
Then I epoxied the ends of the large cracks where it had completely split the dash pad, sturdying the whole unit to be ready for Bondo. Next I used Bondo Fiberglass Resin Jelly to fill in the gaps on the board , sanding it after about 30 mins. After the first round of sanding I made sure not to burn thru the thin dash pad around the edges of the Bondo getting it flush. I noticed I still had some indents in the dash so I redid the whole process to make it perfects as far as I can tell. ( excuse the indoor pics , I have no garage and it's raining in LA )
After getting all the Bondo flush and perfect with the rest of the dash, my plan was to primer and paint it.
Do I need a special type of primer to stick to this plasticy dash or will regular exterior sandable rattle can primer work?
Also I need to find a way to replicate the "skin" look of the dash in the bondo areas where it's been smoothed. A thought I had was to take some vinyl from a thrashed door panel and use it as sort of a "stamp" in the paint once it sets a bit and is in the gooey phase of drying . See pic below:
