Dash Cover
You can pick up a spiffy dash cover
from Motorsport or Victoria British (I'm sure they use the same
maker...but I could be wrong). They are plastic and give a real
look.
Good thing about them is they hide
all the nasty cracks and make your dash look like new.
Downsides:
They fit best if your dash is in good
condition, so why would you use a dashcover.
You have to tear out all the raised
parts of the old dash (cut them out) which makes it hard for the
dash cover to bond well at the edges (where your dash is most
likely torn up). I had to cut out a 1" section around most
of the front side of the dash, since it was so raised up. There
were also some major cracks on the part of the dash above the
cluster. The arrows show that it was difficult to have the front
edge of the cover bond, because it was all cut out, so it couldn't
bond to anything. But if you don't cut it out, the dash will be
all warped and leave an even larger gap at the front edge. If
you install one, maybe you could fill up the edge a bit with some
putty filler so the cover has something to bond to.
All the other parts of the dash bonded
very well. You have to pop out the little clusters on the sides
of the dash because the cover sets behind those areas. It should
be noted that though Motorsport and Victoria British claim these
are FULL FACE dash covers, the one for the 300ZX does not cover
the bottom parts of the dash (radio/AC control console area or
around the stereo). Also, you'll loose the padded feel of the
old dash when you put this on, though it does still have some
"give". The color for the dark brown dash in NOT a perfect
match, but I don't know if that is due to fading over the years
or what. You can paint your dash whatever color you wish. The
sections for the round instument pods in the center of the dash
do NOT go all the way in...they go about 1/2 way in. Who are
the add wizards that came up with that one!!! I guess they
figured if they went all the way in, they might hinder vision
of the gauges due to thickness of the dash cover.
Althought the dash cover isn't perfect,
the whole point was to make the dash look better, and it certainly
does look better. I think it's worth the $89 if you have a hashed
dash.