well as some of you guys know im getting new interior soo like as of this summer, and i had the look of vinyl so i have been looking into fiberglassing. Well my question is what keeps the fiberglass from cracking from the flex of the body if it drys rock hard? or does it crack eventually?

as long as its properly made and sturdy enough you shouldnt have a problem with it.


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you drill like 100 holes in the dash before you glass it this way the resin soaks up in the dash and it makes it harder to crack

ok thanks guys ive never glassed so new experience... do i need to take off the top part of the dash to glass or just drill holes and glass away?

Youd be better off taking the whole dash assembly out. If you only take the dash pad out and glass it if you set it somewhere to cure and bends pretty easy, so once its cured it will have probably warped and not fit back in properly. If you pull the whole dash assembly you can set it back on the dash out of the car.

When I did mine I ground off all the vinyl and foam underneath and then glassed. Your adding alot of xtra thickness if you glass ontop of the vinyl pad.

^ yup...listen to this man

Z2FLIP4 wrote:
When I did mine I ground off all the vinyl and foam underneath and then glassed. Your adding alot of xtra thickness if you glass ontop of the vinyl pad.

not to mention it probably wouldnt fit back in if you didnt peel all the vinyl off.

if this really is your first project, id start some where else before starting on something like glassing a dash

i prefer to peel the vinly off the dash like your peeling a bananna, this way it comes off as one piece lol.


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when i tried to peel my vinyl off it stuck so bad...and i ended up just wreckin the whole thing trying to get it off...does it always stick that bad...like it rips and @!#$ and theres this fricken foamy stuff under it and u gotta pick at that for like a million hours...but i got a new one and dyed the vinyl anyway...stupid broken dash piece

wysiwyg wrote:i would say they bang, they don't really pound so much. but if
you want to bump, then they will bump and hit real hard and a lot good.

LOL

i wont just go into the dash not knowing wtf im doing so im going to be makeing a box for my sub and another one for the next sub im going to be getting so i will have some practice and some experiense on it. Thanx for all the info.

only one way to learn,


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^
well put

i found the foam to be the worst to take off ....add extra layers of glass under the dash around the airbag frame and the a/c vent thats where i found it to be the weakest. try to slip the resin and then glass under the metal. i used a wire wheel to cut the plastic up a little 4 the resin to bite in to. and yeah lots of small holes helped alot too!

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/4235/jim25ek.jpg

i think im the only person that didnt have any issues with peeling their dash off. i need to post some pics, its cool as hell, it came off as one solid piece, i could probably slide it back over the plastic dash piece and use it like stock again if i wanted it came off so nice.


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I didnt have any problems with my dash pad warping since i did it off of the car. I just made sure it was elevated and the side wernt touching the ground.

you got lucky, it also depends on what fiberglass you use. higher quality fiberglass wont shrink as much, thats the issue, as the fiberglass dries it will shrink some. the cheaper brands like your bondo brand will shrink allot more then your more expensive brands. fiberglass can shrink for up to 24 horus after the piece has dried, i made the mistake of setting my rear deck on the ground to air out, this was about 2-3 hours after the piece had dried and i left it on the floor over night and the weight and shrinking caused the piece to bow out as it fully hardened overnight. simple mistake ruined the piece.


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When I stripped my Cavalier dash and the GrandAm dash I molded together they both were a bitch to get the vinyl off without tearing into little chunks. Thats why I used a grinder with 24 grit disc. Took me about 10 mins to clean it all off, plus its already scuffed up to accept the resin and matting.

on the top of the dash the foam under the vinyl was hard to take off i really thought that a 24g disk would grind the plastic into spiting flames lol the foam underside came off nice as for the glass i layied it in 3 pieces and used a small amount of hardner i never had any shrinking :note i reinforced the back side first having the dash sitting upside down and have the middle laying on the table for 24hrs first ..no air pockets are shifting

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/4235/jim25ek.jpg