79MKII

Hello All,

I've been searching for a console and shifter for my '72 Supreme and found one pretty close to home. Problem is, it needs a repair and I've never tried to fix one. Do you think this can be repaired? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

69442C

I would tend to believe you can repair that damage so the console can be used. The good news is the area with the damage is hidden once the shifter plate is installed so you can take a few liberties with the repair and no one will know. There are different plastic epoxies but I'm not sure I would fully trust them to work. Let's start with the rear tab that is broken as that would be the easiest. I would use epoxy to glue the piece back in but I would also cut a piece of metal the same square size and place it over the entire area. Use 2 small screws into the solid undamaged plastic along with epoxy under the metal to hold it in place. The bolt will now seat against the new metal. Paint it black and it shouldn't look too bad. For the front tab, if it were me, I would try to make that same size piece that broke off in metal so welding would be necessary to fabricate that part. I would also make that part with pieces that extended outward to the sides and again, use screws/glue to anchor that new metal part into the solid sides.
Others may have other ideas but that is what comes to my mind at first glance.

Funkwagon455

I purchased Q bond at my local automotive paint and body supply, this stuff works GREAT, and will not leave large blobs of epoxy oozing from the wound. The strength is so good that if you tried to break it apart, it will break at another location. I've included a link to ebay for convenience.

Elwood Blues "This is glue-----STRONG STUFF!"

Good luck!!!!!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Q-Bond-Ultra...ht_2633wt_1189

RandyS

Something I have done is after you glue/epoxy/Q Bond the parts back in place, is to reinforce it with fiberglass cloth and resin. That stuff is pretty bulletproof once it sets up...
Good luck!

79MKII

Thanks for the great ideas and the link to the glue! You guys have pretty much convinced me that I could repair those areas. If I understand correctly, the shifter mounts to the floor anyway so the broken areas are for holding the console to the shifter, right? I'm assuming that the console mounts to the floor also? If that's the case, the repaired area might not have that much stress on it.....sound right?

I just noticed that the console has 2 screws through the side and into the hinge. Is the hinge area usually repairable? I'd be painting the console so maybe I could fill the screw holes if the hinge is properly repaired. Here's a shot of the screws:

70Post

The inside area of hinge is repairable. I'm talking about inside the "glovebox" compartment....that's plastic and there are a number of ways to fix that.

The OUTSIDE (where you show the screw heads in your pic).....that's actually an outer METAL piece with a very thin grained vinyl molded onto the metal. This will be more problematic but likely more a function of how much time you want to spend filling the holes and trying to recreate the vinyl "grain" where you fill.

You could do something as simple as leave the screws and just use chrome screws there (if they aren't chrome already) for a sort of "factory" look or use screws that are black for a slightly more "hidden" look.

You could also try removing that outer metal piece, filling the holes and then re-covering the whole piece with new vinyl (with a similar grain). The "problems" there will be getting the vinyl to cover the metal part without creases, etc. The vinyl (or whatever coating the factory used on this upper console box metal outer piece) is VERY THIN....MUCH thinner than the vinyl you can buy or what you see on seats and door panels.

Here's a pic of the metal piece I refer to above when it's removed from the console (sorry about the bad grammar in the pic....was in a hurry)

79MKII

Thanks for the info and pic Patton. I was wondering if the piece you have pictured was removable / replaceable. I wasn't sure that it came apart like that. Are those hard to come by? I haven't seen any repops but I think replacing that piece would probably be the way to go. I'd never get the grain matched for sure and probably couldn't recover it well enough either. I had also thought about black screws...would be quick and easy...then I remembered that I'd be painting the console green anyway. Chrome might be the way to go there if I don't replace the whole piece.

DeltaPace77

Quite honestly, I've never had very good luck with glues on plastic parts like these, but certainly haven't tried them all. As mentioned, anyway you can fab in a metal reinforcement piece would be a big help. Also consider drilling small holes in the piece, and looping tie wires through. If haven't already, good checking the Eastwood site, or getting hold of their catalog, as specialty old car restoration products is what they do.

70Post

Well...since you mention glues I tend to agree in part. One of the repair methods for the "broken hinge area" repair involves drilling new holes in the PLASTIC part of the console and re-mounting the hinge in a slightly different position....thus no glues to rely on (which isn't a bad thing).

Basically, this repair method involves mounting the hinge to the outer plastic housing that's behind the metal piece. The hinge was originally attached to a strip of plastic or a plastic rail you see when you open the console door. While this strip/rail is PART OF the overall console plastic (not a separate piece) it's design lends itself to being a part that can get highly stressed if someone bumps against the console door when it's open or pushes it in an effort to get it to open further.

This repair method means you move the hinge outboard (still inside the "slot" that exists b/n the rail and the surrounding plastic) and mount it against the inside of the outer plastic housing. Of course, the "rail/strip" may be missing since once they broke people just tossed out the broken strip.

In terms of availability of the outer metal piece.....hard to tell. Basically you'd have to find someone with a REALLY junky console that they were parting out (OK...now we are "parting out parts instead of whole cars"...you know us car nuts are desperate when that starts happening).

I've looked around occasionally for "parts consoles" but most of them are still in decent shape and too nice to part out. Down here, when you used to find consoles at salvage places they were either relatively complete (maybe in need of a repair like the OP refers to) or sometimes all smashed up because some idiot was too stupid to figure out how to remove them when they were trying to get to the shifter assembly they wanted. Reminds me of a '70 442 4 spd car that came into a salvage place about an hour south of Austin many years ago. We were climbing all over that car and inside we saw the clutch and brake pedals hanging there.....no console BUT once we started looking close we realized IT USED to have a complete 4 spd console in it until some idiot had completely smashed it apart. I found a couple pieces of the plastic 4 speed boot adapter but that was all.....the rest was gone and/or smashed into oblivion. Fortunately, there were other parts left such as the pedals, a nice core support, the 4 spd floor shifter trans tunnel metal "hump", etc.

The material used to cover the metal outer piece almost appears to be more of a thick decal/sticker type material....probably molded onto the metal piece with heat, etc. As I mentioned before....it's VERY thin stuff relative to regular seat vinyl. I'm going to mess around with one of these and some regular seat vinyl and a heat gun and see what happens. I'll see if there's anyone that sells a vinyl material without the usual white woven backing on it as well...that would probably help in any attempt to "mold" a new piece of vinyl on there.

I'm sure one of those vinyl/seat/dash repair people that go around to car dealer lots and fix up tears, etc on used cars could work wonders on those holes and recreate the vinyl graining.

If the console's going green then you can always paint over the screws with the same green.

OK---who's going to be the first person here to start a "Console Salvage Yard"?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rows and rows of consoles (arranged by brand/make)....all sitting out in the yard and jacked up on wheels to hold them up in the air.

EDIT: forgot to mention it above....as the others suggested you should be able to glue the thing back together where you show the shifter mounting area and use your imagination to add additional material where possible to add support/strength.

BUT....take some time when installing the console once you are through and TEST FIT it. Install and tighten down all the bolts/screws EXCEPT FOR the two that hold the top of the console to the shifter body top. Then take a close look at that area and see if there are any gaps between the console plastic and shifter body where those two screws go in (or alternatively if there's a lot of interference in that area..ie..the console is sitting "high" because of interference in that area). The idea here is to not rely much on those two screws to "handle the load" and keep the console down tight...leave that to the two mounting screws at the front of the console and the screws down under the console glovebox that go into the rear floor bracket.

Use washers, etc under the console plastic to take up any gap there (or under the rear console mounting points if the console seems to be "hanging" off the shifter mounting screws a bit.

When you think you've eliminated any gaps (or in the alternative "tight spots/interference points) under the shifter body screw holes then proceed.

TK-65

I used Plastex on this ABS dash "pad" for my 65 F85 442. It was broke apart across the column and had several cracks. The Plastex worked awesome, repaired all the cracks and fixed the area that was completely broken.

I then filled and sanded the top sides of the cracks. Next I used SEM Texture Coating. Spray it on and lightly sand and it will replicate the grain used in these parts. You have to get the distance from the part down, too close and its too much. Too far not enough coverage.

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Texture coating before sanding.

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