456M Bubbled A/C Panel Fix

The A/C Panel on my 2000 456M was severely bubbled, and short of finding and paying the $950+ for a new panel, I fixxed it myself. With the completition of this small project, I can say there's 2 ways to fix the panel: a new overlay (see below) or use of a heat gun. I'll describe both.

First, you need to extract the panel, an easy job with a putty knife; work your way from either side and pop it out. No screws. One connector on the back easily removed. You'll want to take the panel off the box (4 screws on the back), then remove the 3 knobs (snap ring pliers). Alll very easy for the DIYer. Also, I took the opportunity to remove the sticky, rubber coating from the mirror/trunk/emergency buttons (goo gone), and repainted with Testors Metallic Graphite. This color is very good, not too black, and blends with the leather. On to the panel fix...

Unfortunately, Ricamba doesn't carry a replacement panel in black, but they do have replacement overlays in dark silver/gray for the 456 GTs. I ordered one ($70 or so), and it's a very-high quality overlay, including (of course) the proper, green-colored transluscent lettering for night illumination (say that 3 times fast...).

Anyway, I was worried it would look out of place in the 456M. See the pictures below, it actually looks just fine, and is brighter in the pictures than in person. There's enough chrome, aluminum, and on my stereo, the same color silver, that it all blends just fine. So, if you want to go this route, see my pics and decide.

The other method was something I tried before doing the overlay. I first thought to squirt thin cyanoacrylate (super glue, from the hobby store) under the panel and have that flatten the bubbles. This was moderately unsuccessful. I cut the edge of the panel material with a hobby knife to inject the glue, and that ruined my ability to do the fix that does work: a heat gun.

The panel material is heat-sensitive (probably the origin of the bubbling in the first place), and I found I could apply gentle heat from the gun, and smooth the surface with a clean, lint-free cloth. This actually worked very well! Unfortunately, as I had cut the edge of my panel for the glue experiment, the shrinking material pulled up around the edge. If I had not cut the edge, I'm convinced I could have smoothed the panel material to a much-nicer condition (not perfect), but well worth a try.

Warning: the material really does shrink pretty quickly and you don't want to get it too hot. Do this at your own risk, and in my case (having the backup panel overlay), I wasn't too worried about wrecking the old cover.

So, there you have it. Pics below of both old and new.
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