My dash isn't vinyl tho. It's hard plastic. A chunk of it came off because it was cracked so badly. And to my surprise, its hard plastic. So could I take it out, super glue the crap back together, reinforce it with fiberglass, and then cover it with vinyl of the same color?

 

The panel gets fried by the sun, plain and simple. You have that huge windshield and a flat, *black* piece of plastic to really absorb the heat. It gets cooked.
You could try super glue but I think the plastic would just crack in another place. If you cover it with a thin skin of vinyl it may hide the cracks but I don't think vinyl would hold up very well.
I hit the U-Pull-It yard earlier today and there was another 94 V6 entry. The dash upper panel was there but already cracked so I removed it just for fun. First you have to remove the a-pillar trim. It just pulls off, starting at the rear end. Then pry up on the plastic panel and it will pop off. The one today broke apart piece-by-piece as I pried it up. I had about 8 pieces by the time I was done. There's a thin insulation pad directly under the plastic panel.
While I was at the junkyard I got a call from my buddy who works at a GM dealer. He called to say that list price for the panel is now north of $300 but my price is $250. It was painful but I said okay. I'm not going to look at the broken up panel every day.

 

OK what part are we talking about here? I cant see the images on my work computer (I know they are on the selling thread), If it is the part under the glass that is large and mostly flat then yes it is hard plastic and you can play with superglue all you want... fiberglass will not stick to it so dont even try. If it is the part in front of you that holds the gauges, heater controls, radio... etc then that is actually wrapped in a foam and that is covered in a vinyl material. It gets really hard in the heat and sun so after a few years it will seem like hard plastic. There are afew pieces of trim that are hard plastic and the knee guards under the dash are hard plastic as well.

Massey

 

I'm talking about the mainly flat piece of dash under the windshield...

 

found one the right color for mine. im thinking about getting it so i may have one for sale for a half decent price. painted the grey one that i got black cause it looked like crap and couldnt find dark grey vinyl paint.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/93-96...s#ht_919wt_941

 

As careful as I was, while trying to remove the dash panel on my old 96, I put a big moon shaped crack in it. I fixed it from the back side by first sanding the area around the crack. Then duct taped it together on the front side to line the crack up correctly. When you turn it back over (back side up), make sure the seam is lined up and brace it up if you have to. I mixed up a batch of epoxy, put the epoxy down, and then layed a piece of fiberglass cloth over that to span the crack. Work the epoxy into the cloth (it will absorb), and put more epoxy on top of the cloth to get a good cover. Don't use the 5 minute epoxy, you're going to need more time than that. Once it was done, you would have to know it was there to see it, and it held well. DON'T use super glue in the crack either, it WILL make it more noticeable.

 

Thanks for the advice 69.

 

I picked up my brand new dash trim panel yesterday and installed it this morning. Part number is 10267171 and list price is $311. I paid $250 which hurt quite a bit. First thing I couldn't help but notice is the box is HUGE. I was glad to see that is is already painted. I guess it's very a very dark gray with a non-shiny finish. Not matte, not semi-gloss either. Hard to describe.

The new part is not the same as the original. For one thing it has small nubs spaced evenly across the front edge, presumeably to contact the back of the windshield. Also, it has a big sheet of foam glued to the underside. The original was bare on the back and used a combo rag/rubber pad that lay on top of the dash. That old pad shrank significantly over the years and tore when it shrank around the attachment points.

Installation was fairly easy but you do have to flex the panel to get it between the a-pillars. I don't see any way for a 15 YO piece of plastic to survive that bending even if you do find an unbroken panel in a junkyard. Or if you get your old one out in a cople pieces, glue it, and then try to reinstall it. Forget it.

My old one came out in a bunch of pieces. The velcro-like fasteners grip VERY well and the old panel breaks every time you pry at those areas. The front edge of the old panel was super brittle, breaking with little effort. Farther back the panel is a lot stronger but it still breaks. And it shatters like plate glass, throwing shards that can easily cut you. Nasty stuff.

I removed the old insulation pad from the top of the dash and tossed it. IT's not compatible with the new panel.

This was a painful expense but, like I said in an earlier post, the broken dash looks awful from outside the car and from inside the car. There's no ignoring it since it's right in your face. It's over for me as long as I own the car. Here are some pics.

 

how thick is the plastic that the dash panel is made from? could a "glued"back together original be used to make a new one from carbon fiber? it would add alot of strength and some flexability to the panel, not to mention weight a little less, and it could be left carbon (if your into that kind of thing) or painted to match the original

 

it appears like the "covers"are just a vacuum formed peice that epoxies in place? so im assuming there is enough clearence around the original dash for the added thickness?