I just got a great deal on a complete Ford Dash Pad for 1985. However, the color is wrong. I have a bright (canyon) red interior and dash, and the pad I received is more of a wine or burgundy color. What do I do in order to change the color of the dash pad? Is it difficult to do, or should I just get my money back? For some reason, you cannot buy Ford Dash Pads (only dash CAPS) for the 1980-1986 Ford F-150.

 

I did this to my 80. I used a silicone and wax remover to clean it first. (Quite often a PO will have used armour-all which is impossible to paint over) Once it is cleaned I used a vinyl/interior paint. The stuff I used was U-fixit but I know you can get better stuff. Do a search because I know it's been discussed before. Mine worked very well, you can't even tell and it has stood up well.
Hope this helps.

 

Advance auto has a cleaner/de-greaser that is in spray bottle and is purple! I cleans everything off and then wipe the dash pad down with a new clean cloth and distalled water. This will get all the wax and other cleaners off and then use a good vinyl pant to cover the old color. My dash pad was mustard yellow and looked like someting from a baby diaper! the black paint covered it well and has not come off yet!


Rod

 

After you clean the dash pad as outlined in the prior posts, keep in mind that changing mustard yellow to black is an easier task than changing burgundy - a darker color - to canyon red - a lighter color. It may require several coats of canyon red color coat flexible coating to accurately match the rest of the interior. SEM is one of the widely distributed flexible coatings and it's available in most colors.

 

pknute is right, It took about 10 very light coats to cover the dash pad and 2 good finish coats to make it shine!

 

Make sure you get the dash pad prepared correctly, otherwise the potential for the "vinal spray or equivelent" will come off easily.