The part of the dash where the windshield vents are at. Over time the dash will start to seperate from the vent. The left side vent also seems to come loose in most 3rd gens I've seen in the salvage yard. Has anyone ever successfully repaired their dash, if so what did you do?

Mike

 

Sounds like that might be a regional issue... Never heard of or seen such problems here on my 3rd gen or any junk yard ones.

 

The hotter it gets, the worse they separate. down here in the souf where it's 100+ much of the summer, almost all of the defrost vents I've seen are separating too, as well as cracked dashboards. Over time the vinyl covering on the dash dries out and shrinks, causing the edges to separate from the base material and start to curl up.

how to fix it, I dunno. maybe use a dental pick and scrape out the dried foam between the layers, then use an adhesive of some sort to bond them back together?

 

It's a sun damage issue. Virtually every 3rd gen here is like that after 20 years. I'd assume it's prevalent in southern cars.

Here's what it looks like:



Candiman... I repaired a dash of mine using silicone adhesive, and it actually worked very well.

Here's what I did -

Remove the defroster vents, and you'll see this:



Then take a screwdriver or something, and you need to "carve" out a chunk of the ruined foam (maybe 1/2" or so "deep), all the way across the swollen area.

What you're doing with the silicone is then filling this void with the silicone. You want to really goop the silicone in there so that it fills the whole "gap" top to bottom.

Then you need to get the part of the dash that is swollen pressed back down so that the silicone can cure. What I did is take some towels, wrap them up tightly and then wedge them between the dash and the windshield, thus pressing down on the area I'm repairing and also keeping the "form" true.

I left it like that for a full day to let it cure, and it worked fantastically.


Now, after doing it, it would definitely be 10X easier to do it off the car. On the car, it's hard to reach. Foam falls all down into the dash vents. Silicone gets everywhere (I got a bunch on my windshield).

I wish I had taken some pictures of the process, but it's really pretty simple. The dash I did this on was the black VE I sold earlier this year.

The next dash I do (on my current black VE), I'll remove the dash and do it in the garage.

*edit* Matt posted while I was compiling my post - but his idea is exactly what I did

 

Glad to know my idea works.

to prevent the nasty crap on the windshield, you can cover the glass with paint masking paper, blue tape, etc..

If you need to be abel to see through it to do the repair, you can buy sheets of clear plastic adhesive floor covering in the paint section. it's just clear sheet with some weak adhesive on it to protect your carpets while doing work inside the house. it won't be optically clear, but it will be better than trying to see through paper.

 

That's exactly (or similar) what I was thinking of doing. I was just curious if someone tried the repair.

 

This is a very minor problem compared to what happens to some other Nissan dashes. We're lucky it's remotely fixable.

 

pretty good fix. I got some spots where the vinyl looks like like it sort of exploded. Might dig out the foam and glue back with silicon.

 

Thats not a bad idea, ill try this when i have spare time - mine is separating slightly in the center of the dash. This looks like a walk in the park on a 3rd gen max.. try accessing the same area of the dash on a 4th gen F body with a much lower sloped windshield, which i had to do even just to clean the glass

 

You should have seen the dash on my FX35. It was all bubbled up and looked like it had some kind of disease.

Luckily, Infiniti extended the warranty on the dash, so I had mine replaced. I also got to drive around a G37x for several days. I didn't pay, but they gave me an invoice for over $1k. They also put my steering wheel on crooked, so I need to take it back. I just never go to Beaverton, so called them up and I will take it in some time in the future.

 

After 14yrs of ownership, my heater core has finally sprung a leak. Perfect timing, now I can get two birds with one stone. Yeah me..............

 

Be sure to cover the ecu with plastic for the time being!

 

Don't got that problem on not one of the four 3rd gens I have in my possession. Even the leather in the VE is in impressive condition.The 5.5 is in perfect shape also. Thanks to nine months of gloomy days per year. I got a spare dash...wanna get it?

 

Good idea, I forgot about that. Luckily I'm able to part the Max until it's repaired.


Augustus, thanks for the offer but I'll pass. But since we're talking about dash, here are the possible option I'm thinking to re-condition my dash. Keep in mind all options involves removing the dash.

Option 1 - Repair the dash as James suggested
Option 2 - Option 1, plus re-spraying the dash with a quailty vinyl dye product.

I like option 2 because it give me a chance to re-spray all the interior panels. Over the years the center console, kick and door panels are showing their age from normal wear/tear.

Option 3 - Option 1, plus re-wraping the dash (and other panels) with another material. Material choices have not been decided on but it gives me an oppurtunity to customize the interior.