Just when you think you can buy just about every part for every car on the planet, you come across something you are trying to restore that doesn’t have a dash pad available. And sending out the dash pad to have it restored by professionals is sometimes incredibly expensive. But what if you could do the repair at home? And what if you could do it at home and come up with a race style look that at the same time makes the dash look incredibly clean and nice.
Flocking has become a popular look in the import and rally world over the years and has the look of suede. It makes for a dash that has no glare because it isn’t shiny, and that has a nice soft touch to it as well. Of course the coolest thing about the soft look is that it hides any damage from cracks and such. Those cracks still need to be filled before doing this, but they certainly don’t need to be as smooth as they would be if you were painting the dash in high gloss paint.
The process for fixing and flocking the dash is pretty simple, and only requires a few tools and supplies. I’m sure it takes a bit of practice to get really good at it, but these guys sure seem to have gotten nice results.
Watch and learn and then send us photos of your project when it is done.
I’d recommend using flexible plastic bumper filler rather than rock-hard Bondo for the crack filling because the dash WILL crack again if you use a product with zero give. Otherwise this is a good tutorial.