I have an original 1985 Ford dash pad that is in almost perfect condition. The top of the pad is fine with no cracks or splits whatsoever. The only thing that is wrong with it has to do with the speaker grille area. The foam on the underside of the speaker grille area is disintegrating. About 75% of the foam is still intact, but the rest is either gone or is very brittle.

Will this compromise the strength of the speaker grille at the top of the dash pad? Since the foam underneath is disintegrating, is the speaker grille more likely to crack now?

Is there anything I can do to "enforce" this typically weak area before it starts to crack?

 

Not without plugging all the holes ... Of course you could re-drill/poke the holes!

I would start soaking it with 303 Aerospace Protectant to soften it up.

-Enjoy
fh : )_~

 

When your ship comes in, check out justdashes.com
They can fix it and they do beautiful work. But expensive work.

 

Unfortunately, about the only thing you can do without altering the panel is soften it up as mentioned. When I got my black interior, the dash pad was near perfect, just faded. No cracks anywhere. I set it up on wood blocks of different sizes in the shop so that it was level and there was no stress on it whatsoever. The next morning the vinyl had a hairline crack on it right down the side of the speaker grille. These things are so brittle it's not even funny. If mine gets any worse i'm gonna kitty hair the underside of the speaker grille and then throw one of those carpeted covers on it.