2017-09-17
While putting the dash back together after installing the Car-PC, I had to address a broken piece of plastic on the center dash panel.
The lower right ear had cracked and was only held in place by because it was trapped between the screw-head and the "Bread Loaf" dash pad to it's right. I purchased a dash pad eliminator kit and so it was time to deal with the broken ear.
Every plastic repair job is unique so there's no one-size-fits-all approach that works in every case. So, I want to illustrate a technique that worked for this particular repair.
The broken ear had a collar behind the screw hole. It is very likely that the hole and collar split because the screw was over tightened. I had to find a way to add structural integrity to the piece now that it had broken. I measured the diameter of the collar, found a drill bit that was slightly smaller and made a metal ring out of a paper-clip that would fit around the broken collar to hold the pieces together. The ring would not provide a fix by itself but when it was embedded in a small amount of Epoxy, any stress caused by tightening the screw would be transferred to the Epoxy and the embedded ring. Hopefully this will be enough of a fix to keep this dash panel going for many more years.
