What did you do to your Volvo today? Topic is solved

[BlackBart]

Hausmeister - those blue clips get fragile and crumble. Worth it to buy a few and replace the ones on that window. (This is assuming the rears are the same blue ones as the front windows, which I’ve replaced twice now.)

[RedBrickCollector]

Took the whole dash out, together with the... for lack of a better way to put it, "Professional dashboard repair sculptor" who will take care of the fiberglass work. Used a bunch of articles from here as reference and aside from bad plastic and a bad previous repair, things went mostly smooth. There are places missing screws, like the small one in the steering wheel and for my turn signal (surprised I never noticed) but looking forward to the result.

Total cost might be close to what I spent on koni shocks lol

[scot850]

Unfortunate timing. I am slowly working through a write up of how I have repaired my last 3 dashboards successfully. Unfortunately being dyslexic slows down my length of concentration. A word of caution, do not add too much thickness under the mounts where the metal clips hold the floating mounting nuts in place. Also do not prevent the nuts from being able to move or you may have a devil of a job refitting them.

It will interesting to hear how it works out as I have never heard of anyone using fiberglass for this repair. Good Luck!

Neil.

[crasbe]

The carpet on the drivers side of my V70 had a hole worn through it (I still don't really know how or why, but I bought it like that).

Since carpetry is not really my strength, it took some time to figure out a solution that is in the realm of my capabilities. So first we start with a pattern:

This pattern is then made into a 2D sketch in Fusion. Furtunately it is really easy to import an image as a background, so that was quick work:

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The decision was made to 3D print a patch. 3D printing is something I am familiar with, working with carpet isn't, so this promised to give the best result. The first prototype was printed from PLA, because it is much cheaper and much faster to print than flexible materials. The final patch is made from TPU with a Shore hardness of 95A. The prototype fit very well, so the final patch was printed the next day (it took nearly 5 hours instead of 1 hour).

To avoid ripping the carpet at the seam that is created at the stitching, a backing piece was 3D printed. The trick here is that the model was sliced without solid top and bottom layers, so only the infill grid remains. This allows for more flexibility (in a literal and figurative sense) during the stitching process:

Everything was aligned and held in place by a lot of pins and then I got to work:

I haven't stitched in a couple of years and even then I didn't have a huge amount of experience, but the results are not tooo bad I think:

Just the stitching took about five hours, the 3D prints took about seven hours in total and designing the patch took maybe an hour.
So now the carpet is finally ready to be put into the car again and I can finally reassemble the drivers side footwell

[abscate]

You are going to need a bigger mailbox for all the carpets that are going to be mailed to you,

[scot850]

A good addition would be a replacement heal pad for the carpet under the driver's foot where it wears through below the gas pedal.

I have mats but not all do. I have seen plenty with holes worn through them. Actually the pad on the carpet mats also wear through.

Hm, I think we may be onto a winner here!

Neil.

[scot850]

Spent a chunk of yesterday and today writing up the P80 dashboard repair process I use. My wife kindly helped me today with some of the more 'advanced' document stuff so it is now posted for review and critique. I have more photos than those used in the write up so if anything needs clarified let me know in the thread. I still plan to update the materials and tools listing to have an actual list. Also I will add that as PDF too so it can be more easily downloaded if any one wants to. Now I need a beer before my brain cell explodes!

Neil.

[RedBrickCollector]

I won't be doing it myself but I'll pass that along.

Searching for 850 dashboard repair does bring up a swede speed forum post detailing how to repair with fiberglass so there's that.

The main reason I'm having an experienced professional handle it is that it is much, much worse than simply a case of broken mounts. The plastic has shattered in many places, and other cars in country are much the same.

[crasbe]

You are going to need a bigger mailbox for all the carpets that are going to be mailed to you,

Oh dear... that's too much work to start offering that as a service for other people.

A good addition would be a replacement heal pad for the carpet under the driver's foot where it wears through below the gas pedal.

I have mats but not all do. I have seen plenty with holes worn through them. Actually the pad on the carpet mats also wear through.

My mat does not have such a pad, so I can't really take reference.
But for the mats it should be easy to make a repair pad. But I'm not interested in sewing it in

[scot850]

Just thought more sewing practice might speed up your skills!

You know you are right. Brain meltdown! It is the rubber mats that have the carpet insert that wears out. Not the carpeted mats!

Great job though! I like your thinking.

Neil.