New way to address dash lifting
 

When I first heard about this happening I was under the mistaken impression that it was some kind of failure of the glue bonding the dash padding to the structure. In reality it is a much simpler thing - when the dash heats up and expands the dome over the center vent is only constrained in one location, the middle. If you remove the center vent you will see a small lip sticking out in the middle that slides into the center vent. With it set up this way after a few months of heat you start to get a 'double bubble' effect in that domed section of the dash.

What I did was scuff the underside of the plastic that makes the structure of the dash and JB Weld some 1/8" thick pieces of plastic onto those sections. Then I cut smaller strips and JB Welded those onto the face with the larger sections acting as anchors.

http://i.imgur.com/0VEoGWz.jpg

Depending on how much the dash needed to be held down (on every car I've seen the passenger side lifts more than the driver) I added self adhesive felt (this will also depend on the vertical location of the tabs, the two on the right were about 7 mm from the top surface and that was too low). These new protrusions fit into the vent housing and act to constrain the entire front edge of the dash with the vent.

http://i.imgur.com/6KQDIXH.jpg

End result was my dash went from being something annoying to look at every day to a perfect fit.

http://i.imgur.com/qKiqSHW.jpg

i see you have a stitched and wrapped center trim. where'd you get that done? any more interior photos?

i need to do this too, mine is bumped up on the right side.

Jason at Overland. I'm doing several of the same things you did - I moved the Start button and the seat heaters based on your car.

No full interior shots until I'm done and I have a couple things left to do :)

I'm going to have to do this to fix the hunchback of Notre Dame thing it has going on with the passenger side biased hump...LOL

Edit: I just thought about something...what about free floating the vent and taking off that top middle tab.... I think I would rather try that.

Edit 2: just trimmed off the middle tab, will see if it comes back to symmetrical shape and how much it expands when it sits in the sun tomorrow. If not I can always add in some custom tabs...

more info! i'd like to get that done too

Check out Overlanddesigns.com. Contact the owner and tell him you would like a center vent like Ivans' s.

Removing the center tab will allow the dash to float more. On warm days the middle of the dash will be many mm above the vent in the center and only 2-3 on the edges. You get rid of the double bubble and replace it with a single large hump.

I'm interested to see how this holds up after a month of summer heat. Thanks for the writeup.

I'm pretty curious myself, I can envision it possibly becoming necessary to add a ridge to the entire front edge of the dome to keep things even, but it took an entire summer's worth of heat to get any deformation in the first place so this might be the end of it.

How's this holding up so far?

Still looks like the pic I posted, so far so good.

Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

http://i.imgur.com/dvuNUZ9.jpg

I think I'm a good candidate for this repair, thanks for the DIY.

Just bumping this post, was looking into doing this soon and was wondering if anyone else has done it and could give a slightly more detailed guide. And if Toast is still active just some shots of the anchors from the side so I can build my own, thanks!

Weirdly enough... thanks for rezzing this thread. I had no idea there was a fix. I guess I'll be doing this soon :happyanim:

Hey Wally, I ordered some plastic and I'm going to get some adhesive felt and JB weld and attempt this DIY. If you give it a shot send some photos here if you could, I'll do the same once I get the materials in. Good luck!