khughes
06-12-2006, 05:04 AM
Hi Guys,
as probably most of you, my 240K coupe has a cracked dashboard right where the centre dash speaker is, well it did!!!
A while ago, i visited the local wreckers and found a toirquise late model 240k sedan with an absolutely immaculate blue (yuk!) dashboard, very very strange considering that the car no longer had it's windscreen.
Because the donor was a late model car, it had the round air vents as oppose to my square ones. The plan was for me to dye the dashboard with satin black dye and pop it in the car instead, using all of my square vents.
well i placed my glovebox up onto the dash and quickly realised that it wasn't going to work, the metal skeleton of the dash gets in teh way. so i came across the wacky idea of trying to remove the skins from the dash and transplanting them onto the skeleton of my proper dash.
There are a number of nuts holding the dashpad on underneath, once these have been removed i tried pulling the old dashpad off. I managed to rip it off but not before absolutely destroying it! it came off, but the area around the speaker was almost glued on due to the heat i guess that cracked the top.
I decided to press on as i really didn't have a choice now. To my amazement, after unscrewing the nut, it took a little bit of gentle prying to get the studs out of the holes, but it then just slipped off, no damage what so ever!
the dashpad seemed almost brand new! it had all the factory markings on the back! The dye worked really well when i sprayed it on before, so i gave it a few extra coats now since it was off the frame.
I then compared the two dashpads, and apart from the massive cracks! the only modification needed was to cut out some of the padding on the right hand side of the glovebox section. I carefully cut the pad out to resemble the old dashpad, and slipped it back on the old frame. without too much effort it slipped on!
The dashboard looks awesome now, just the way it came out of the factory!
so we all now know that the old dashboards don't replace the newer style directly, but the pads can be interchanged with a little bit of effort!
good luck finding those dashes! i am not sure why the blue one i found was in so good nick, maybe it was replaced very late in it's life, or maybe blue is better at resisting the heat!
as probably most of you, my 240K coupe has a cracked dashboard right where the centre dash speaker is, well it did!!!
A while ago, i visited the local wreckers and found a toirquise late model 240k sedan with an absolutely immaculate blue (yuk!) dashboard, very very strange considering that the car no longer had it's windscreen.
Because the donor was a late model car, it had the round air vents as oppose to my square ones. The plan was for me to dye the dashboard with satin black dye and pop it in the car instead, using all of my square vents.
well i placed my glovebox up onto the dash and quickly realised that it wasn't going to work, the metal skeleton of the dash gets in teh way. so i came across the wacky idea of trying to remove the skins from the dash and transplanting them onto the skeleton of my proper dash.
There are a number of nuts holding the dashpad on underneath, once these have been removed i tried pulling the old dashpad off. I managed to rip it off but not before absolutely destroying it! it came off, but the area around the speaker was almost glued on due to the heat i guess that cracked the top.
I decided to press on as i really didn't have a choice now. To my amazement, after unscrewing the nut, it took a little bit of gentle prying to get the studs out of the holes, but it then just slipped off, no damage what so ever!
the dashpad seemed almost brand new! it had all the factory markings on the back! The dye worked really well when i sprayed it on before, so i gave it a few extra coats now since it was off the frame.
I then compared the two dashpads, and apart from the massive cracks! the only modification needed was to cut out some of the padding on the right hand side of the glovebox section. I carefully cut the pad out to resemble the old dashpad, and slipped it back on the old frame. without too much effort it slipped on!
The dashboard looks awesome now, just the way it came out of the factory!
so we all now know that the old dashboards don't replace the newer style directly, but the pads can be interchanged with a little bit of effort!
good luck finding those dashes! i am not sure why the blue one i found was in so good nick, maybe it was replaced very late in it's life, or maybe blue is better at resisting the heat!