Preventing Instrument Cowling Covers From Cracking

[Anthony 1,002]

As I'm sure many of you have experienced, the plastic instrument cowling covers on GTi dashboards have a habit of cracking, and replacements are getting more and more scarce. From what I've seen this seems to be a problem on Phase 2's (black) more so than Phase 1.5's (grey) but whether this is because they used a different plastic, the black soaks up more heat or what I don't know.

 

I have a good, uncracked and undamaged Phase 2 cowling cover here, and I'm pondering whether there's anything worth doing to it while it's out of the car to try and help prevent it cracking in the future. There's two or three places where they always seem to crack, and was wondering whether it would be worth filling the area behind these crack prone spots with something like resin, epoxy or even hot-melt gluegun glue to give it some extra strength and support?

 

Or indeed, would that actually potentially make the issue worse by adding stresses elsewhere when the dash is baked by the summer sun and shaken with vibration and jolting from the slalom of pot-holes that we call the British road network?

 

Ideas and suggestions welcome

[GeorgeXS 32]

Where abouts do they crack Anthony? Both of mine are fine, never seen one crack before!

I'd imagine, resin would work to stop it cracking, dependant on where these cracks are you could even give it fibreglass reinforcement perhaps

[Henry Yorke 269 3 Cars]

I have had exactly this issue on my CTI. I think a CTI may suffer worse as you tend to have the heaters on more than in a GTI.

 

My 1993 CTI had gone brittle around the centre vents and snapped the screw mounts into the dash. I would suggest some form of rubber washer here to allow certain movement without having to be done up tight. This is more likely to break on a stiffened car than a road car and I am sure uprated engine mounts do it no favours.

Most dash cowls have broken where they meet the steering column fairing, on the two legs that go down into this. This is due to people not taking them apart properly

Likewise is the right hand side bracket for the hidden screw as this often breaks off (strengthening / repair put here in this pic)

The classic place for them to be visibly broken is to the bottom left of the clocks. (strengthening / repair put here in second pic)

I also found that sometimes I could not get the clocks to sit flush which doesn't help either and may have led to this in the past

 

So to conclude, I think it is worth strengthening black dash cowls. I did this with some Araldite and a cut up plastic food pot (like you get pasta sauce or soup in). I used this as it is flexible enough to go round corners and is easy to cut to shape. I will be strengthening my new (perfect) cowl when I fit that.

[smithy 1]

got same issue with my p1.5 ones,not sure if there is a way to prevent the problem occuring in first place but with mine i used some resin and thin plastic to strengthen cracked areas.i also used resin over screw holes to fix some copper washers so they do not crack/break anymore.

[rallyeash 155]

get it flocked!

[Henry Yorke 269 3 Cars]

get it flocked!

 

Get flocked yourself

 

The downside to flocking is that it picks up every bit of dust possible and still breaks underneath. Also once you do the top bit, you really need to start doing the rest of the parts otherwise it doesn't flow and looks naff where it finishes by the heater controls

[Batfink 201]

how about rubber washers for every screw holding the dash in, hopefully allowing some element of flex and movement without driving you nuts with rattling.

[gowmonster 2]

this due to sunlight? towel on the dash if your leaving it in the sun then no?