57' Dash pad question

[dn010]

Hello all, it has been a while since I've posted. I'm finally deep into my 57' Sedan Deville's restoration and I am nearing the point where I need to paint and fix my dash. My issue is the vinyl dash pad is long gone, leaving me with only the steel structure. I'm not sure how this was originally, I'd imagine there was some sort of foam between the steel and the vinyl. Can someone suggest the best way to fix this? Do I need to find a replacement pad? I see dash caps for sale all over the place but they say it needs to go over the original broken dash pad so I am not sure if this is an option for me or not.

Thank you for any help.

Dan B.

[57eldoking]

The pads were originally made in a hot vacuum process. It is impossible to get a satisfactory original look by simply recovering the pad. RD Autoline in Sweden do the best reproductions of these today using tooling acquired from now defunct Saab. Autoline have sold countless of these to U.S customers so should be pretty straightforward. You strip your current dash down to the steel backingplate and install the new pad you’ll receive from Autoline. Good luck!

http://autoline.se/?lang=en_us

[dinhnguyen57]

I replaced by dashpad last summer on my '59 and the results was very very good.  I used the Dashpad Factory, which you can find them on Ebay and Facebook.  For $1000, I send them my core and they strip it and rebuild it with the factory molds. then they paint it in the correct color.  It took about 1 month turnaround time.  I don't know if they have the mold for a '57 but you can contact them and see.

Also when I asked for a discount from their advertised price, they gave me about a 10% discount.

[dn010]

Thank you both. I will explore these options. It looks like I won't be able to tackle this until after the holidays so this gives me time to contact these companies.

[David King (kz78hy)]

Just Dashes can do it.

http://www.justdashes.com