Dash Wood Grain

[Leghome]

My son in-law and I pulled the dash out of my 72 Thanksgiving. I have been disassembling it since then. Last evening I took the wood grain off and was wondering if the wood grain is supposed to have some sticky S#%t holding it on. There were five or six strips of this back tar like substance holding it. Had a heck of a time getting it off after straightening the tabs and even cut my finger on the sharp edge while trying to remove it. This is what had the wood grain not fitting properly the thick black crap causing it to rock up and down and the screw on the right end not lining up very good..

[Blackhawk]

GM used adhesive to hold the panel in place, I believe the usual term is dum-dum putty.

 

There's a chance that your panel has been removed and more putty was applied than necessary.  My dash had five or six small areas with the putty, but they were very thin.

[MCfan]

Larry,

 

I encountered that black globular adhesive (I've heard it called dum-gum) when I replace the original "chopped" woodgrain bezel on my '70 SS with a later production whole one.  It was actually the only thing holding it on - no tabs, no screws.  I scraped it off the original bezel and used it to reattach the replacement.   You can work that stuff in your fingers like clay or putty until it is a bit more pliable.  While it can be a PITA to remove, it is actually pretty useful stuff and I wish I could find a current source for it. 

[1970mcss]

I used 3-m strip caulk

[SmokinMC88]

I used butyl tape I got at Napa. Should be similar to the dum gum tape. I put it in the same places as the factory did and it works great. A lot better the 3M 2 face adhesive stripes that I’ve tried before in the past.