Has anyone ever re-covered their dashboard with marine vinyl or some other product? My pink vinyl dash looks terrible & I'm looking for options to fix it up.
Re-cover vinyl dashboard - 208 adventure?
- Thread starter boslaw
- Start date
I am not sure what area you are asking about. Is it the panel with the gauges or the top of the console? In both cases, I don't recall seeing any vinyl except for an area under the helm.What year is the hull? I am not very familiar with very early 208 models.
On my 98 208 removed the two sides and dash took them to an Auto paint shop had them painted off white close to the grady color , the owner said they often spray car dashboards , five years later the sides look better then the dash from just dirt . Not sure if a clear coat would have helped or cracked with the heat . You can also replace the screw caps an off white , the wood panels I used a marine dark blue . Even after five years still looks better then than faded brown . In a year or two will remove and have them resprayed it was under $200.
My 208 is 1997. I don't know what the material actually is. I assumed vinyl. I'm talking about the pinkish console that surrounds the digital gauges. Sounds like Steveditt had the same idea as me. Maybe I'll try to find an autobody shop to do mine. They look terrible!
It should be relatively easy to figure out if it's vinyl, or not. Vinyl will feel like... well... vinyl. It could be a rotomolded plastic or even a gel-coated, fiberglass part. Obviously it didn't start out as pink, so it has faded over the years from constant sun damage. Vinyl can be dyed, gelcoat can be painted. Plastic... is a little more "step intensive" to paint, but can be done.
pretty sure it's vinyl. I never saw a brand new grady in 1997, but I think it actually did start as a pinkish color. Grady made some strange choices back then.
OK, so curiosity got the better of me. I went to Grady's site and downloaded the archived, 1997, brochure. In it, are pics of the 208 dash and side console - they are clearly a different color than the rest of the dash. I'd say they look to be a tan color? But looking at those pieces, they would be AWFUL hard to cover in vinyl given all the contours. HOWEVER, if they are vinyl, you should be able to verify by pulling out your cupholder and looking/feeling around the inside edge for the vinyl as it would have been cut then glued to the inside edge of the cupholder hole.
Sea Ray's had a soft-touch dash around the same time. I'm not sure how they were made, but they were NOT vinyl. At least not in the traditional sense that we are imagining here in this thread. I've never seen one of them turn pink, though
I bet that whatever Grady built those out of (or had built for them), it didn't fare well and that pink color you are seeing is, indeed, fading. If you look at the '99 brochure, they no longer use that tannish color. "Probably" because there were issues with it. But again, pulling the cupholder/instrument panel/etc should reveal whether it's true "glued on" vinyl, or not.
It may be worth while to contact Grady and ask them if a dye or paint would work on whatever material that is.
Sea Ray's had a soft-touch dash around the same time. I'm not sure how they were made, but they were NOT vinyl. At least not in the traditional sense that we are imagining here in this thread. I've never seen one of them turn pink, though
I bet that whatever Grady built those out of (or had built for them), it didn't fare well and that pink color you are seeing is, indeed, fading. If you look at the '99 brochure, they no longer use that tannish color. "Probably" because there were issues with it. But again, pulling the cupholder/instrument panel/etc should reveal whether it's true "glued on" vinyl, or not.
It may be worth while to contact Grady and ask them if a dye or paint would work on whatever material that is.