BUILD THREAD 87 Cutlass EFI build: 9/13/23..NEW STUFF!

[Injectedcutty]

Figure I better update this while on a mission. Tonight I finished up the topside repairs and got them ready for texturing. I spun the dash around to address the repairs at the radio opening and lower pass side of dash.

Unfortunately I was only able to get one thin coat of epoxy on before running out. However, after reading the tech sheet, the 3M glaze I used on the wheelwells was a suitable product. So I mixed up a small dab, and had to do two thin coats with blocking in between coats. In the end, I have the repairs done and can hopefully clean the dash real good tomorrow and texture it time permitting....

 

[Injectedcutty]

As mentioned earlier, I had enough time today to clean and spray the textured coating onto the dash repairs. That thing was filthy, no telling last time it had been cleaned!!!
I went through the normal steps...clean good with dawn and water with a soft brush and grey scuff pad. Rinse off, then clean again with SEM soap and grey scuff pad. Wipe down, blow with air nozzle and repeat until dry. Then wipe down with wax and grease remover, sprayed a solid coat of adhesion promoter, then several light coats of the textured coating.
It's amazing what that stuff does! Needless to say, I'm super pleased with the results and can now do final prep for paint. Now that the dash is clean, I'll just have to give it a wipe down, but getting closer!!! Here is a before/after gratuitous shot.....

 

[Tony1968]

Wow that dash is going to look better than new!

 

[L92 OLDS]

That is definitely an improvement! The OEM texture is very difficult to reproduce. Looks like the spray texture you used creates a washed out stipple. For whatever it's worth, a supplier I use for acid etching grain on production tooling can duplicate or repair whatever grain you need. They often do this for studio prototypes and we use them for shows like NAIAS . High quality results but likely an expensive option when you could just replace the entire IP or cluster surround with a good part. The Mold Tech / Tenibac link is below for anyone interested. These guys likely textured the original G body tooling for our cars.

Tenibac

www.tenibac.com

 

[Injectedcutty]

Wow that dash is going to look better than new!

Thanks Tony! Yeah the texture isn't identical to the GM grain, but what I haven't shown yet is after scuffing it in one direction it has more of a grain look. Hard to tell in this pic unless you zoom.

 

[Longroof79]

Nice work, Scott.
The SEM texture coating is not bad stuff. It's good to see something resurrected that otherwise would have been tossed in the junk pile.
I'm glad that you persevered and did a nice repair on that dash.

 

[Tony1968]

Looks really good. And kudos to you for your organizational skills in the background.

 

[Injectedcutty]

As some have seen, I'm off the rest of the week so I had to capitalize on a beautiful December day! Earlier this morning I got the Cutlass moved outside, cleaned the garage real good and setup to paint the dash and associated parts. I also taped off the man door and dayum I'm glad I did! By the time I finished spraying there were black spots all over it from the vacuum the door makes!
Needless to say, after 4 cans of landau black and 2 cans of low luster clear, the dash is finally painted and looks awesome! My index fingers hurt like hell right now, but no pain no gain!
Before:

After:

 

[TURNA]

AHHH looks 1000 times better on a full screen

 

[O. D. Showtime]

Looks great Scott!