Okay, in order to fend off boredom, I’ve been working on ideas for what I’m going to do to my Chrysler whenever I find steady employment that pays enough for me to afford to do anything. (Which at the present rate will be some time after hell freezes over.) One of the things that I want to do is change the interior color which is presently black. This, of course, sucks major ass in the summer, because it’s blistering hot.
I’ve been checking around, and apparently finding a white dash is impossible, because they never made them. Nor did they ever make a tan dash, which is the color I want. (A white dash could at least be dyed tan.) So, what I figured I’d do is get some kind of light weight cloth (like is on the front of speakers) and cover the existing dash with that. (I am NOT going to get one of those “dash covers” you see for sale, those are uber tacky. The effect I’m going for is so that the car looks stock.) I need some kind of adhesive which will hold the cloth down, BUT if I ever choose to return the car to stock, can be easily removed, without damaging the dash. Any suggestions?
To keep the original dash, take it out and store it. Then get a junkyard dash and upholster it like you want. Maybe contact cement? That stuff you buy in art stores that sprays out of a can. Or rubber cement? Lots of work. Oh, countertop laminate cement, like Formica brand. Good stuff.
That’s not a bad idea, assuming I can find another dash in decent enough shape to use (also, have to see if there’s a VIN tag on the dash, if so, that could cause problems if I get pulled over).
IIRC, MoPaRs of that vintage pop-riveted the VIN tag to the dash, so as long as you drill out the rivets when doing the el-swappo, things should be fairly simple. For glue, I’d suggest 3M #77 or #90. You can find them at Home Despot, and other similar stores. I used #90 to redo the headliner cloth in a '79 LeBaron. Bought some cotton t-shirt material at the fabric store, washed it once to take out wrinkles and did the sticky thing-worked out nicely. Did you consider trying one of the Krylon for plastics paints to get the color you want? Another idea might be to check out the JCWhitney online catalog. They have all sorts of interior refurb stuff-there might be some special paint for what you’re trying to do.