Lancia Motor Club

Chaps,

Has anyone had a dashboard re-covered.

My Flavia Coupe needs doing, and i`m not confident of doing it myself without making a complete mess of it.

I was wondering if these guys who do whole car wraps on modern stuff might be able to help, what do you think.

Bob Dow

Bob,
I think any competent trimmers should be able to recover it for you, although cost might be another matter, I had one made for my 2c back in 2000 by a trimmers in Newport south Wales, I've also used Barton Brothers in Luton who took one of my seats apart and replaced all the rotten stitching, and did a nice job, so I don't really see it should be a big problem apart from the cost.

Brian
8227 8)

The problem often is the foam underneath goes brittle and trickles out as a nasty yellow dust and the edges curl in a most odd fashion. I have an OE aluminium dash top that came out of an 815 1500cc coupe and had no foam from new - the black vinyl was just glued on. I have not seen another car fitted with this type so assume it was a very early car! I always had the thought of making a mould and then fabricating in fibreglass and never have the problem again. I never got round to it and then sold my coupe.
You are welcome to borrow it if this is a route you wish to try.
Brian

Brian,

My car is a 1963 one, and it does not have the vinyl over foam arrangement, which I have seen in many sedans, and fail as you mention. It sounds more like the one you describe.

It currently is just a matt black hard textured painted surface, but it has some odd looking cracks in it.

If it never had a vinyl covering, maybe I should go down the route of just having it resprayed with a textured coating sort of thing ?

Bob

Any photos Bob? it sounds like it might be that the paint surface has shrunk, but what you suggest might well be the way to go.

Brian
8227 8)

very odd! Mine was definitely covered with elderly vinyl but perhaps it was a fix for a problem early on in the car's life. It could of course be the sprayed covering was a fix for the original vinyl going!.............
I would be tempted to sand it down and spray it/enamel paint it or whatever and see how it looks with the fall back of covering your experiments with vinyl if total failure.

Guys,

Thanks for your thoughts/suggestions.

I will post a couple of photos at the weekend to see if that helps with any suggestions.

Thanks as always,

Bob