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My 82 F350 dash has seen better days. There were numerous cracks and the speaker hole had fallen in. I wanted to get things flat again because I ordered a dash cover to go over the old one. So, I used expandable foam insulation to fill the cracks and hold a piece of Luon in the speaker hole. I sprayed it with vinyl paint afterward. I sanded the insulation off and the dash is fairly smooth now and ready for the cover. Kind of a kooky idea, but I'm a cheapskate. I had the insulation in the shop anyway.
I did the same spray insulation trick for mine too.
If you're looking to cover the insulation I'd recommend a plastic Bumper Filler rather than typical Bondo Body Filler. Bumper filler is designed to be flexible after hardening and will be able to cope with the expanding and contracting that the dash goes through while sitting in the sun. Unlike Bondo which will eventually start to crack and break away from the dash.
I also tried the spray foam with out the same results
Well it went on and sanded ok but turned ugly when I tried to paint it.
I wanted to add the texture back and the SEM spray texture I bought would not spray so I used roll on bed liner.
What a mistake that was! The bed liner melted the foam and turned into a big mess.
This was on the worst of the 2 I had and I had a cover I was going to use so but wanted to give this a try.
When I fitted the cover on it looked like I could remove some of the outer edging and fit the cover, nope so this pad was basic junk.
But I still have a plan for it. On Youtube I have seen where they use fleece blanket and fiber glass rosin to fix the pad so that is the plan.
I got all the supplies I just got to do the work. I forget what they used to add texture so would need to find it again.
If you have a cover to put over a bad pad I dont see the need to fill the speaker hole or cracks and the cover is pretty strong and should not bend in them areas.
Dave ----
Luckily my dash hasn't cracked anywhere except over the speaker, most of that is gone. I bought a dash cover to put over the whole thing and just slid a piece of cardboard under it and over the speaker hole. Works pretty good, for me anyway,
I found a dash pad a LONG time ago in the jy from an F-500 or some such... don't forget to check out the large trucks in the junkyards, the cabs & interiors are 99.98% the same.
