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Spitfire Spitfire Dash Top refinishing

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J

Joe_Pinehill

Jedi Hopeful
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I need to give my dash top a face lift, debating a refinish with vinyl sheet or a plastic overlay from one of the suppliers. Does anyone know of a thread or website that talks about refinishing with vinyl sheeting? Or, if you have an overlay, how do you like it ? thanks

Also Im going to reveneer the dash board, with maple or walnut veneer.
 
Hi Joe,

Check the posting from 11/23 on this site. There was a discussion about refinishing the dashboards that presented some good info.

Best,
John
 
I refinished mine with vinyl. You might want to check out this Parklane website.
https://www.parklaneclassics.co.uk/index.htm

The chap who runs it is Owen Lloyd, and he has a number of 'kits', at reasonable prices. Basically, the dash kit consists of pre-cut vinyl pieces, and instructions on how to reupholster the crash pad and lower rails. You need to supply your own adhesive. I have bought a dash kit and a centre armrest kit from Owen. This is good quality vinyl, and it closely matches the original grain (coarse or fine as you prefer) for Spits.

Redoing the dash is not that big a job, depending on what kind of shape yours is in to begin with. Mine had a pretty big crack in it. Getting the crash pad out is a pain in the butt, but once its free you can work with it pretty easily.

I used JB Weld to patch and fill the cracks (you could use body filler probably). You will want something you can sand down to shape, so you can get the original contour of the dash back. Also, as per Owen's instructions, I lightly sanded the entire crash pad with 300-grit to get a good 'tooth' for the adhesive to bond to. After that I just followed instructions to glue the new vinyl on (the VTR instructions are good here).

The finished product looks pretty good. The recovered dash does not have the sheen that the original plastic finish did, which is not bad as far as I am concerned. When I am done everything on the interior (which may be a long way off...) I intend to treat the dash top with armour-all or something like it, which should provide a nice lustre.

Owen's kit also includes the material to do the rails under the fascia.

As the VTR article says, it is a tight squeeze to get it back in, but mine fit with no real problem, and it has a little 'bulkier' look now which I actually prefer.

Took me about 4-5 hours all told.
 
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