@Scorpi0 - I saw a series of 4 videos on utube on dash removal. Never watched them because I got exhausted thinking about it.


A few weeks ago I picked up a free large office printer, a ton of paper and toner for rehoming at a friend's business. I decided to put it through its paces and print the FSMs for the cars in my life.
I never noticed until I had physical copies that the happy engine dude (my avatar) is like an easter egg, hidden in all of the Datsun Nissan and Infiniti service manuals I printed (across 40 or so years). I wonder if he has a name...

Anyway...I heard my throw out bearing singing a terrible song in a garage this morning.
Time to make a decision between JWT and Z1 street so I can replace this noise with some chatter.

 

Scorpio, what climate do you live in? Having a hard time imagining my 04's dash cracking as it still seems soft and supple, but my car has always lived in New England.

When I was looking at clutch/flywheels I found the best value in an Ebay / Amazon 18 lb steel flywheel with the Z1/Exedy mild performance clutch (~350 lb-ft torque), plus had a local machine shop balance them as a matched combo for an extra $100. Plus some generic 12.9 bolts from Fastenall, I forget the size. You can't reuse the OEM bolts, they're stretch to yield. And you also want a new pivot ball, at least mine was mushroomed pretty bad with a previously installed ACT stage 2 pressure plate.


The whole shebang was $500 including the piece of paper confirming the setup is perfectly balanced up to 10,000 RPM. 15k miles of daily driving, midnight high speed pulls, and autocross use later, I'm still happy although I preferred the feel of the ACT stage 2 during aggressive driving... but that's apples to oranges. I bet the Z1 / Exedy "street performance" would be just as good.

 

CSW, the car has been in California its whole life. It has a thin crack at the bottom of the dash, right above the nav area. The other ***** of missing dash was my fault. I had my taken my driver door apart and left the plastic piece with the tweeter hanging. The door closed and the plastic pressed on the dash and took off a small piece of it.

I thought my repair would work but it just made it look more like crap. So now Im just gonna cover the whole thing in some new material. I might be able to do it without removing the dash, but it would just be so much easier with it removed. But I know the removal process is quite the task so it might not even be worth it.

 

I have seen a couple threads/posts on successful crack repairs where they were able to match color and texture. Hunt them down; they might help.

 

I already smeared the new stuff on the dash. It is aviation grade epoxy sealant. The color is a perfect match but it is glossier than the dash itself. Plus it doesnt have the texture to match the rest of it. It looks like shiny śhit all over my dash and it wont come off. Easiest fix is to re-cover the whole thing. BOOM!

 

I was in the same boat as you for years before tackling the problem. Your best bet is to go pull a dash from a junkyard. You get a twofer by practicing pulling the dash out and get a project dash. The vinyl pretty much pulls off in big pieces and you're left with the bare foam. I used the 4-way stretch vinyl from yourautotrim(perfect match to oem) and dap industrial contact adhesive. The vinyl is easy to work with. Set aside a full day to swap the dashes. Two years later and it's looking flawless(florida heat). The fsm makes it simple by telling you what to remove in alphabetical order and reverse order for installation. Costs around $150 for everything. Finally, buy a sunshade.

 

^^^

Thanks Fresh!

I think Ill be aboe to pull the whole dash off in about 3 or 4 hours. Any tips and tricks to gettin it off?

 

Link to which vinyl you purchased?

 

My dash just started cracking. Would appreciate A link.

 

Try this; https://www.yourautotrim.com/

or this; https://www.yourautotrim.com/al4stvi.html

 

I drove it, dirty AF because of early morning rain but I didn't even care.

 

Me too!

Fresh, I clicked on the link u provided but couldnt find the one that u said is almost an exact match to OEM. If u could show us the way, we would greatly appreciate it.

 

the "black" or "high-tac black"?

 

Never posted a link but here it is
https://m.yourautotrim.com/allsportblack.html

4 hours is conservative for the first time. I'd expect that time to maybe double. It's a good idea to label Ziploc bags and organize the screws. I'd also remove the steering wheel instead of tilting it down and out like the fsm says. Highly recommend using a spare dash for the project so you don't screw up your current one and can swap it out the same day

 

Maybe your car has a different interior color? Mine is more of a dark blue and not an actual black.