I have a dash that was originally tan now painted black. How do you strip the paint off to start fresh withought ruining the "grain" on the dash?

 

If the paint is good you may just want to spray over what is there. If not I would try a little lacquer thinner on a rag and work slow to see if its working without damage-ing the vinyl.

 

there is so much paint that if I put another coat I will probably loose the grain.

 

how much does a new black one cost?

 

I have not seen repops

 

not sure what the dash pad looks like in a '72. i own a '76, it's pretty big, like the whole front of the interior. justdashs redid mine, wasn't cheap, looked great though, better than new. they priced it according to size and shape. maybe you'd want to send it off and only cry once when you see the bill and be done with it. my dash was kinda wasted though, valley sized cracks. so recoloring wasn't an option. i've pulled abunch of them from salvaged cars, they are all junk. i think once the plastic gets old your through, nothing will fit-up when you try mix and matching.

 

Is it painted with that Vinyle paint or something else?

 

DON'T GET NEAR IT WITH LACQUER THINNER!!!

You WILL melt/soften the plastic.

EasyOff Oven Cleaner would probably do the job (lots of people use it to strip plastic grills...same ABS plastic).

OOPS---I'm talking about the lower dash plastic not the padded part of the dash.

Still....I wouldn't use any lacquer thinner on that part either.

 

Are you planning to remove the dash from the car to do this work or are you doing this with the dash in place?

If you plan to remove it (which is what I would do...yeah it will be a PITA), you can use lacquer thinner. I have used it on dash pads without any problems. But don't go crazy with it and use a thinner that will dry quickly. Put the thinner on a rag and wipe small areas at a time. Wear suitable gloves too. This will take some time. Work on a small lower area first to make sure there won't be an issue with the thinner you have any the vinyl.

If you plan to do this in the car, using thinner will also work but now you need to mask off different things that won't like the thinner such as gauge bezels, painted metal etc. And the end result will likely not be as good as doing the pad out of the car.

Your best bet may be to find a nice used dash that has never been sprayed and dye that one the color you need. Just Dashes will cost you some serious money, over $1K, so I would exhaust all other options first.

 

no doubt, my dash costed me like $1,250 with shipping both ways, took about five months to do. no big deal considering the value of the car and the quality of the finished product. they use heavier vinyl with better UV resistance. it would really suck to buy a used one for...? (don't know how much they are). go thru the time to put it in and have it crack 18 months from now.

 

The dashes on the 76 had thicker vinyl than the 77, that's why you see more 77's with cracked dashes than 73-76's, at least here anyway. Here's my original dash. I was lucky. No cracks or flaws. Just wipe her down with a damp cloth every now and then. $1250...that's crazy! Then again, the sun here doesn't have the same "cooking capacity" as where you are.

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Image082-1.jpg

 

thats a nice '76 "S". looks like it has the 442 option. i put a steering wheel like that on mine, had to color match the center and that hub deal behind it. that trans. shifter don't look exactly stock, neither does the picture of that olds. on the wall behind it, cool. my brougham don't have those swivel buckets, i had a '75 "S" that did. i put those gauges/seat belt light in mine, along with a ton of other stuff, actually about 850 lbs. i saw a '77 dash pad that was red in a four-door "S", real good condition. i passed on it 'cuz it's substantialy different from a '76. i noticed certain colors seem to hold-up better than others, who knows. power windows, door locks , litter basket, and a clock, wow. looks like it might even have tilt wheel. nice color!!!