Center Console repair

[weever82]

What is everyone doing to fix the stress cracks in their center consoles. My 84 has the cracks in the usual areas. I want to prep and repaint before I replace my carpet but was hoping to "fill" the cracks in first. Any ideas or what you have did would be great.

Thanks for reading!

[wildwilly4x4]

Assuming you are talking about the 81-91 style consoles.... I drill the ends of the cracks, then use a large animal (vet type) needle/ syringe with a large dia. needle to inject 2 part epoxy (I use some 5 min set locktite clear epoxy) into the crack...once the epoxy is set enough to be tacky, I dab at it with a red rag to help blend the texture back into it. Once all done I dye the console to whichever color I am going for. I also beef up the area where the lid screws down with some JB weld, then be sure not to overtighten the lid screws when putting it back together. From what I can tell, overtightening the screws is the major contributor to the cracks to begin with.

If you are doing the old '70's style console, I haven't ever had to repair any of them, other than refinishing. I want to say that at least some of the parts on my '80 K5's console were fiberglass, so fiber glass type repairs may be in order, although the epoxy method I use on the later ones may also work.

Hope I helped ya out!

[weever82]

Originally Posted by wildwilly4x4

Assuming you are talking about the 81-91 style consoles.... I drill the ends of the cracks, then use a large animal (vet type) needle/ syringe with a large dia. needle to inject 2 part epoxy (I use some 5 min set locktite clear epoxy) into the crack...once the epoxy is set enough to be tacky, I dab at it with a red rag to help blend the texture back into it. Once all done I dye the console to whichever color I am going for. I also beef up the area where the lid screws down with some JB weld, then be sure not to overtighten the lid screws when putting it back together. From what I can tell, overtightening the screws is the major contributor to the cracks to begin with.

If you are doing the old '70's style console, I haven't ever had to repair any of them, other than refinishing. I want to say that at least some of the parts on my '80 K5's console were fiberglass, so fiber glass type repairs may be in order, although the epoxy method I use on the later ones may also work.

Hope I helped ya out!

Yes! I just started googling 2 part epoxies for plastic, totally makes sense now. Was worried about the texture and the rag is genius. Why drill the ends of the crack? Helps keep it from splitting again? Also I wonder if you can sand down the epoxy if too high..

Thanks again for the input, super helped me out. Just wasn't thinking about plastic epoxy.

[hatzie]

It's called stop drilling.
Cast Iron, steel, fiberglass, glass, and various plastics will continue to crack without a hole drilled at the end of the crack.
The hole prevents the concentration of the spreading force in one place so it's harder for the crack to continue.
You can get pieces of metal to melt into and stitch across cracks in plastics and you can get stitches to drive in across cracks in various metals.
Here's a google search for cast iron stitching.
https://www.google.com/search?q=stitching+cast+iron

Here's a guy welding plastics DIY.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61iyLarL258