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[jsinghcustoms]

Hi All,

I have been lurking on the forum and learning what I can from forum posts and youtube videos (shoutout out to John and Cechaflo). As quarantine started, I felt like I learned enough to try and start tackling a project: recovering the dashboard and door panels in my 07 Lexus RX400h, which had started to chip off and recently become sticky (common problem, which Lexus never notified most owners about).

I spent the first couple of weeks deciding on the leather color, and then started working on wrapping the top of my door panels. After finishing the door panels, and learning a bunch a long the way, I spent the next month and a half working on gluing the leather on to the dashboard.

This past week, I finally got the dashboard back in the car. Yesterday, I went to put that last few pieces of trim in the car when I found out that leather had started to lift off the dashboard in certain places. I used a roller to push them back down in to place, and they seemed to have stuck back on. But today, I noticed some of the leather I had pushed back down and a couple other spots had started to lift.

Visually, it's not easy to tell that the leather is lifting, however my worry is that the lifting will continue to spread.

My question is: Where did I mess up?

Was it the contact cement? I used this https://www.glueplace.com/industries/co ... -1-gallon/ which looked similar to the DAP Landau stuff. (looking back I should have gone with the tried and tested brand, but I figured since they both advertised being high heat resistant and CA compliant it shouldn't matter too much).

Problem with my technique? I usually applied two coats of the contact cement using a foam brush on the dashboard and 1 coat on the leather. When adhering the two pieces, I tried my best to not overstretch the leather in as many places as possible and used a roller to push out air bubbles and get the two pieces to bond.

Some issue with the dashboard material/vinyl padding? While sanding the dashboard, I definitely noticed a difference in the way the dashboard sanded vs the top part of the door panels. The dashboard definitely felt different and was difficult to rough up with sandpaper (I tried 80 and 120 grit). My guess might be that the dashboard has deteriorated to a point where it was releasing a lot of oils/chemicals, causing it to feel sticky/melt together in the heat. I also used isopropyl alcohol on the dash to thoroughly clean/degree before applying the contact cement.

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.
J

[John]

@jsinghcustoms First off just want to say that I am very impressed that is you first project. You picked one of the hardest things to learn first and it came out pretty nice!

There are many things that could have happened.
1. I have never used that glue before so I dont know how it compares to DAP weldwood
2. Did you allow enough time for the cement to dry before stick the leather to the dash. The cement should be fairly dry to the touch before you stick the two together.
3. Its possible the dash surface was not cleaned and prepared well enough and the glue ended up not sticking in some areas.

Hope this helps!

[jsinghcustoms]

I appreciate the kind words, John :)

Yes, I let it dry at least 15-20 minutes before sticking the two together and checked to make sure it was slightly tacky without the contact cement getting on my fingers.

It seemed to work fine on the uppers of the door panels, but had a lot of trouble with the dashboard. I used 90% isopropyl alcohol to clean the surface after roughing up the surface with the 120 grit and then once more a couple of minutes before applying the adhesive. I'm not sure what other surface prep products I could use.

I went and checked on the dashboard today and felt what seems to be a small chunk of the vinyl padding under the leather, so my hypothesis is leaning towards the glue possibly not adhering well enough as well as the dashboard material deteriorating further (possibly due to the harsh chemicals in the contact cement) and thus the leather is lifting in places.

What would be the recommended way to tackle this project in the future when the dashboard has failed in such a way? There's a lot of Lexus/Nissan/Toyota models that were impacted by this issue, but wasn't able to find much information on how other folks had gone about preparing the dashboard for reupholstery. Most of the tutorials/posts online relate to the cracking dashboards from pre-2000's cars.

[BigRig]

I will say difficult! Great work really!