Rattling dashboard, mounting tab repair notes
#1
07-22-2007, 11:07 AM
Rattling dashboard, mounting tab repair notes
Hi, there.
The dashboard tabs were broken on the 850 wagon I bought. I bought it knowing that the dashboard rattled, but if I knew what a pain it was to get this fixed, perhaps I would have kept looking for another 850. The car had the evaporator replaced by a shop (possibly a Volvo dealer, but I hope not) in 2003, and likely whoever did that broke the tabs. I was in the market for a 'beater' car, our s60 being the non-beater, and i wanted a Volvo because it was a quality vehicle and it was probably the safest car I could buy for the money. Despite it being a beater, I wound up not being able to tolerate the constant noise of the dashboard banging around, so I dug up a post by Tech ( https://volvoforums.com/m_38616/tm.htm ) that was extremely helpful, along with Haynes manual, and decided I would try to get this done. Apparently, the only alternative is buying an entire dashboard.
Please forgive the lack of pictures, this project took me over a week to do because, as a new father, I have no spare time at all. I had to do this in small spurts except for the long Saturday afternoon a friend came by with his Dremel and we rebuilt the mounting tabs.
I don't have much to add to Tech's post as it was very well done. I will say that after getting the dash off, I couldn't believe my eyes. The dash tabs were completely destroyed. If you've never seen the mounting tabs, they're just pieces of plastic that extend downward from the dashboard. The plastic tabs are molded to the dash, so it's all one piece. Around the ends of the tabs there is a metal bracket that hugs the tab and has an inner metal piece with threads where the large torx screws that support most of the dashboard's weight go through. These screws are located under the hood and pull the dashboard towards the front of the car to keep it in place.
Tech's suggestion that I use piping strap alone may have worked, but a couple tabs were completely broken off at the base and if I was going to use them for support in any way, I wanted to make sure to reinforce things as much as possible. Again, with as little free time as I have, this would be my only shot at getting this dash off and repaired, so a little overengineering didn't bother me.
The first step was to make sure I had everything I thought I would need -
loctite all plastics super glue
loctite plastic epoxy
loctite professional epoxy (this is two large-ish tubes of epoxy and activator in a box)
Piping strap (24 gauge, but thinner stuff is much easier to work with and may be strong enough)
10-16x1 self drilling screws
a drill and drill bit that could help get those self drilling screws started (i wasn't taking a chance with this brittle old plastic)
Dremel
thin, smooth cardboard and masking tape (we used the pro epoxy box for cardboard but you can use a cheerios box)
Note - when you're going to work with adhesives for a long time, wear rubber gloves. If you don't do this, you will wind up like me, scraping super glue off your hands with a straight razor for a long time. Also, wear gloves when working with epoxy, as it apparently causes cancer? Or maybe it only causes cancer in the state of California. Lucky for the rest of the world, then.
The first task was to collect as much of the plastic from the tabs as possible and attempt to assemble it back into its original shape. Some of the parts of the tabs were gone forever. I was especially interested in making sure that the plastic at the ends of the tabs under the metal piece were re-assembled into a solid piece so that the metal tab could be put back on. It was as if the plastic under the metal was completely pulverized by overtightening and then years of banging around. It looked like someone dropped a brick on the end of the tab, but most of these pieces were still held in place by this felt-type stuff that had a sticky part to it. I took the felt stuff off, sprayed brake cleaner all over to try to dissolve as much of the grease and grime on the plastic as possible, and took out the pieces with a tweezers and glued them back into their original shape with the plastics glue. I didn't spread them out over a table and re-assemble them, that would have been a nightmare. I worked it by sliding a piece out of the metal bracket, gluing it to its neighbor which I held in place, then taking those two pieces out, gluing them to their neighbor, etc... until it was as complete as possible. I had to do this for four tabs, some were worse than others.
Then I used the plastics epoxy to glue the larger pieces of the tabs back into place. One of the tabs was completely off at the base, others were split into two parts nearer the top. Some had plastic that was gone forever. For the finer detail work, epoxy wasn't going to really work, so I had to rely on the plastics super glue. It didn't matter in the end, since we wound up coating everything with epoxy later.
Once all the tabs were semi-structurally sound, it was time to think about what Tech meant by using piping strap. I was pretty sure Tech meant take the piping strap and run it vertically up one side of the tab and back down as opposed to bracing it horizontally. We didn't really like either option, because we weren't sure if the tabs Tech has seen were as destroyed as mine, with large pieces of plastic missing, so we decided to run the piping strap horizontally across the part of the mounting tab that would touch closest to the engine compartment, bend it inwards and behind the back of the tab, and make a bunch of bends in it so it would sit steady after it was held in with epoxy.
We took the dremel and roughed up the plastic so that the epoxy would adhere better to it.
We screwed in the big dashboard bolts into the tabs and put aluminum foil around the ends of them to keep the epoxy from hardening around the screw directly. We think we could have used Vaseline and made threaded holes for the bolts, but decided against it for some reason.
We drilled a bit and started the self-tapping screws (three per tab in a half circle around the back) and then cut the heads off them with the Dremel. These were going to be stability posts for the epoxy.
Then we took the pieces of cardboard and secured them with masking tape to make walls around the mounting tab areas and mixed epoxy in half of a pop can and dumped it into the mounting tab areas. We thought this was the best solution as it completely engulfed the mounting tabs in epoxy and filled in wherever pieces of plastic were missing. Then we just let it harden for a few minutes, removed the bolts and as much of the cardboard as we cared to, and then let it cure for the directed amount of time (24H).
After putting some tape in front of the metal tab faces for anti-squeak purposes, I installed the dash and tightened it up carefully. I am not sure why but I had to tighten it up a total of three times in three days to make it as stable as I wanted it to be. I believe my initial tightening was very wuss, the second time I tried to torque them down pretty good but the threads were not in good shape as i recalled, and the third time I went for the gusto and nearly had a hernia doing so.
The dash is now pretty rock-solid. I don't think it's as stable as it was when it rolled off the assembly line back in 1995, but it's no longer a major source of noise. Now all I hear is the glovebox. That thing better look out, or I'll bust out the epoxy on it!
It's been a couple weeks. I hope this helps someone out there, though I will say this - make sure you read whatever else might get sai
The dashboard tabs were broken on the 850 wagon I bought. I bought it knowing that the dashboard rattled, but if I knew what a pain it was to get this fixed, perhaps I would have kept looking for another 850. The car had the evaporator replaced by a shop (possibly a Volvo dealer, but I hope not) in 2003, and likely whoever did that broke the tabs. I was in the market for a 'beater' car, our s60 being the non-beater, and i wanted a Volvo because it was a quality vehicle and it was probably the safest car I could buy for the money. Despite it being a beater, I wound up not being able to tolerate the constant noise of the dashboard banging around, so I dug up a post by Tech ( https://volvoforums.com/m_38616/tm.htm ) that was extremely helpful, along with Haynes manual, and decided I would try to get this done. Apparently, the only alternative is buying an entire dashboard.
Please forgive the lack of pictures, this project took me over a week to do because, as a new father, I have no spare time at all. I had to do this in small spurts except for the long Saturday afternoon a friend came by with his Dremel and we rebuilt the mounting tabs.
I don't have much to add to Tech's post as it was very well done. I will say that after getting the dash off, I couldn't believe my eyes. The dash tabs were completely destroyed. If you've never seen the mounting tabs, they're just pieces of plastic that extend downward from the dashboard. The plastic tabs are molded to the dash, so it's all one piece. Around the ends of the tabs there is a metal bracket that hugs the tab and has an inner metal piece with threads where the large torx screws that support most of the dashboard's weight go through. These screws are located under the hood and pull the dashboard towards the front of the car to keep it in place.
Tech's suggestion that I use piping strap alone may have worked, but a couple tabs were completely broken off at the base and if I was going to use them for support in any way, I wanted to make sure to reinforce things as much as possible. Again, with as little free time as I have, this would be my only shot at getting this dash off and repaired, so a little overengineering didn't bother me.
The first step was to make sure I had everything I thought I would need -
loctite all plastics super glue
loctite plastic epoxy
loctite professional epoxy (this is two large-ish tubes of epoxy and activator in a box)
Piping strap (24 gauge, but thinner stuff is much easier to work with and may be strong enough)
10-16x1 self drilling screws
a drill and drill bit that could help get those self drilling screws started (i wasn't taking a chance with this brittle old plastic)
Dremel
thin, smooth cardboard and masking tape (we used the pro epoxy box for cardboard but you can use a cheerios box)
Note - when you're going to work with adhesives for a long time, wear rubber gloves. If you don't do this, you will wind up like me, scraping super glue off your hands with a straight razor for a long time. Also, wear gloves when working with epoxy, as it apparently causes cancer? Or maybe it only causes cancer in the state of California. Lucky for the rest of the world, then.
The first task was to collect as much of the plastic from the tabs as possible and attempt to assemble it back into its original shape. Some of the parts of the tabs were gone forever. I was especially interested in making sure that the plastic at the ends of the tabs under the metal piece were re-assembled into a solid piece so that the metal tab could be put back on. It was as if the plastic under the metal was completely pulverized by overtightening and then years of banging around. It looked like someone dropped a brick on the end of the tab, but most of these pieces were still held in place by this felt-type stuff that had a sticky part to it. I took the felt stuff off, sprayed brake cleaner all over to try to dissolve as much of the grease and grime on the plastic as possible, and took out the pieces with a tweezers and glued them back into their original shape with the plastics glue. I didn't spread them out over a table and re-assemble them, that would have been a nightmare. I worked it by sliding a piece out of the metal bracket, gluing it to its neighbor which I held in place, then taking those two pieces out, gluing them to their neighbor, etc... until it was as complete as possible. I had to do this for four tabs, some were worse than others.
Then I used the plastics epoxy to glue the larger pieces of the tabs back into place. One of the tabs was completely off at the base, others were split into two parts nearer the top. Some had plastic that was gone forever. For the finer detail work, epoxy wasn't going to really work, so I had to rely on the plastics super glue. It didn't matter in the end, since we wound up coating everything with epoxy later.
Once all the tabs were semi-structurally sound, it was time to think about what Tech meant by using piping strap. I was pretty sure Tech meant take the piping strap and run it vertically up one side of the tab and back down as opposed to bracing it horizontally. We didn't really like either option, because we weren't sure if the tabs Tech has seen were as destroyed as mine, with large pieces of plastic missing, so we decided to run the piping strap horizontally across the part of the mounting tab that would touch closest to the engine compartment, bend it inwards and behind the back of the tab, and make a bunch of bends in it so it would sit steady after it was held in with epoxy.
We took the dremel and roughed up the plastic so that the epoxy would adhere better to it.
We screwed in the big dashboard bolts into the tabs and put aluminum foil around the ends of them to keep the epoxy from hardening around the screw directly. We think we could have used Vaseline and made threaded holes for the bolts, but decided against it for some reason.
We drilled a bit and started the self-tapping screws (three per tab in a half circle around the back) and then cut the heads off them with the Dremel. These were going to be stability posts for the epoxy.
Then we took the pieces of cardboard and secured them with masking tape to make walls around the mounting tab areas and mixed epoxy in half of a pop can and dumped it into the mounting tab areas. We thought this was the best solution as it completely engulfed the mounting tabs in epoxy and filled in wherever pieces of plastic were missing. Then we just let it harden for a few minutes, removed the bolts and as much of the cardboard as we cared to, and then let it cure for the directed amount of time (24H).
After putting some tape in front of the metal tab faces for anti-squeak purposes, I installed the dash and tightened it up carefully. I am not sure why but I had to tighten it up a total of three times in three days to make it as stable as I wanted it to be. I believe my initial tightening was very wuss, the second time I tried to torque them down pretty good but the threads were not in good shape as i recalled, and the third time I went for the gusto and nearly had a hernia doing so.
The dash is now pretty rock-solid. I don't think it's as stable as it was when it rolled off the assembly line back in 1995, but it's no longer a major source of noise. Now all I hear is the glovebox. That thing better look out, or I'll bust out the epoxy on it!
It's been a couple weeks. I hope this helps someone out there, though I will say this - make sure you read whatever else might get sai
#2
07-22-2007, 01:18 PM
#3
07-22-2007, 05:45 PM
RE: Rattling dashboard, mounting tab repair notes
Glad you decided to tackle the job.
Glad some of the info I posted helped you in the process.
Hopefully I will be taking mine out soon to make the repairs as well. When I do I will be getting more pics of the process and updating the post.
Glad some of the info I posted helped you in the process.
Hopefully I will be taking mine out soon to make the repairs as well. When I do I will be getting more pics of the process and updating the post.
#4
07-22-2007, 06:04 PM
RE: Rattling dashboard, mounting tab repair notes
Axel,
>I might just invite you over to Argentina for a wonderful barbecue and some dgm#%h!!
Let me join the barbecue
! But I couldn't read the rest of the sentence for some reason, must have been the bugs[8D].
Deathbots,
>likely whoever did that broke the tabs.
Job security for the dealer[8D].
>The dash tabs were completely destroyed.
Job security for the dealer[8D][8D].
>Some of the parts of the tabs were gone forever.
Job security for the dealer[8D][8D][8D].
>It looked like someone dropped a brick on the end of the tab
Now is the time to sue the dealer, make sure to tell the judge that they also spilled a cup of hot coffee on you[8D]!!!
>Also, wear gloves when working with epoxy, as it apparently causes cancer? Or maybe it only causes cancer in the state of California. Lucky for the rest of the world, then.
This one kept me on the floor for minutes, well done
.
Thanks for sharing a through procedure, and I agree that whenever a person uses epoxy, he/she must wear protective gloves. I personally find that fingernails usually work best to rub off any type of glue from human body. And as you probably know, super glues are designed to be most effective on human body, been there & done that myself[8D].
JPN
P.S: Next time, don't forget to use this serious stuff↓
[IMG]local://upfiles/6892/5491540576444538B5AA289B3491B54B.jpg[/IMG]
>I might just invite you over to Argentina for a wonderful barbecue and some dgm#%h!!
Let me join the barbecue
! But I couldn't read the rest of the sentence for some reason, must have been the bugs[8D]. Deathbots,
>likely whoever did that broke the tabs.
Job security for the dealer[8D].
>The dash tabs were completely destroyed.
Job security for the dealer[8D][8D].
>Some of the parts of the tabs were gone forever.
Job security for the dealer[8D][8D][8D].
>It looked like someone dropped a brick on the end of the tab
Now is the time to sue the dealer, make sure to tell the judge that they also spilled a cup of hot coffee on you[8D]!!!
>Also, wear gloves when working with epoxy, as it apparently causes cancer? Or maybe it only causes cancer in the state of California. Lucky for the rest of the world, then.
This one kept me on the floor for minutes, well done
. Thanks for sharing a through procedure, and I agree that whenever a person uses epoxy, he/she must wear protective gloves. I personally find that fingernails usually work best to rub off any type of glue from human body. And as you probably know, super glues are designed to be most effective on human body, been there & done that myself[8D].
JPN
P.S: Next time, don't forget to use this serious stuff↓
[IMG]local://upfiles/6892/5491540576444538B5AA289B3491B54B.jpg[/IMG]
#6
07-22-2007, 08:53 PM
#7
07-22-2007, 10:06 PM
RE: Rattling dashboard, mounting tab repair notes
ORIGINAL: axelm
Hmmm... sounds like you were trying to disguise your finger prints. 
ORIGINAL: tech
Last time I had a bunch of super glue on my fingers I sanded it off with sandpaper.
Last time I had a bunch of super glue on my fingers I sanded it off with sandpaper.
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