'66 GTV Dash repair

[bomonroe@xxxxxxxx (Bo Monroe)]

Rich:

Funny you should bring this up as I'm in the middle of doing a spare dash
for either my '67 GTV or '67 GT Junior (same difference as far as dash
goes). My "spare" came out of the Junior and was molested severely -- on
the pretense of installing a K-Mart A/C uni, a previous craftsman had
hacked a huge hole to move the heater controls above the radio, painted it
a putrid shade of brown, among other crimes. The glove box was also
mutilated. Most people would've consigned the mess to the junk pile, but I
decided to have at it as there is literally nothing to lose. (And I never
throw anything Alfa away). In the meantime my parts car donated a
presentable dash to the Junior and the GTV was redone once upon a time but
to a decent standard.

Anyway: First step is to strip all the trim off. Rings that the gauges set
into are tricky to get out without torturing them beyond reuse. Next step
is to strip away the "veneer." Actually it is some sort of hokey plastic
fake wood, of course. I just broke it off in pieces; a tedious and messy
job, but not difficult. It'll seem like you're bound to destroy the
underlying papier mache (for that's what it most closely resembles) but
never fear -- it's _much_ tougher than it looks.

I was then faced with a repair job for the gaping hole in the dash. While I
was at it I wanted to clean up the radio opening, which had been butchered
also. I used fibreglass to fill the void, laying it up from behind and
using a piece of vinyl cut from a cottage cheese container for a form in
front to produced the correct curved contour. I simply clamped the vinyl in
place using a bunch of small clamps. I repaired the radio opening by
fabricating a sheetmetal panel fastened in place with countersunk rivets.
The glove box was reconstructed with cardboard(!) and fibreglass. Sounds
awful, I know, but it worked well and looks great. While I was at it I
reinforced the the heater control mounting point area with a sheetmetal
backing plate ala what you find where the carb controls are mounted. This
area really seems overstressed otherwise.

I slathered the entire front of the thing with three coats of polyester
resin, block sanding between coats. The hole repair & radio opening patch
were feathered in with a wee bit o' bondo. There were a few other small
areas that required some filler too -- mostly in the gauge recesses.

That's where I'm at now. I could simply prime it and paint it as you've
suggested. The other route I'm considering is to paint the recessed areas
wrinkle black or something and veneer the remainder with <ahem> real
veneer. A friend donated some very handsome scraps with more than enough
contiguous material to do a dash.

I'll let you know how it comes out, but at this point it is looking very
promising.

The one catch, which goes directly to your original question -- the "papier
mache" appears to be impregnated with something that seems to inhibit the
curing of the polyester somewhat. (Does that sentence contain sufficient
qualifiers?) I found that in areas where the outer layer of "papier mache"
was torn off, the resin cured much faster. In some areas I has to wipe the
resin off with lacquer thinner and start over. <shrug>.

cheers,


- --Bo

'66 Giulia Super             <--- the name says it all
'66 Spider 1600 (Duetto)     <--- driver, nice patina
'67 GT 1300 Junior           <--- under resto
'67 Spider 1600 (Duetto)     <--- mothballed, awaiting full resto
'67 Giulia Sprint GT Veloce  <--- rocket, needs paint.
'91 164L                     <--- wife has to drive something...

Bo Monroe
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