At the suggestion of a local upholstery shop I recently took the plunge and had my dash pad and “A” pillar covers on my '69 re-dyed. The pad was in good overall condition with no cracks or tears. The burgandy color on the top had turned darker overall and was faded lighter in a few places. The rest of the pad was in good shape making it relatively easy to match the color. Although the restoration could be done with the pad in place, I removed it, which is relatively easy using the shop manual as a reference for bolt and screw locations. Once the pad was out, I removed the pillar covers and clock. I sent the clock for repair (turns out a good cleaning and a new spring attachment was all it needed). I replaced all the bulbs, tested the gauges, removed and checked the instrument voltage regulator.
I arranged for our local vinyl dying and restoration expert (Bill from Color Glo) to tackle the restoration. Bill is an ex-body man and has a keen eye for color matching. He carefully masked off the areas not to be dyed and mixed up a sample color. Amazingly, he had it nearly perfect on the first try. A bit more black and orange and he had it dead on. The pad was then wiped with a cleaner, lightly sanded with a fine grit paper and wiped again. A thin coat of uncolored dye was applied by hand and lightly sanded. Since the dye is water based, it dried instantly.
The pad was now ready for a coat of finished dye. A light application with an airbrush was applied overall. INSTANT improvement!! A light sanding, cleaning and another coat.
This process was repeated until Bill was satisfied with the results. Once he was happy with it, he applied a finish coat to bring back the original lustre.
The pad is now installed and looks like new. I’m very happy with the reasonable cost of the project,the professional results and highly recommend the process.
I got very good results using NPD’s Charcoal Black Metallic for flexible surfaces spray bombs on my dash pad. Came out really nice, the cans spray really well believe it or not, dries really quickly and the finish is excellent.
Great write up! Looks terrific too. Let us know how it holds up over time.