360 360 Dash bubbling

Unfortunately for me, I had to take the dash out to get to the bubbles near the windshield. Also, if you remove the dash, it will allow you to remove the windshield dash vents, which will eventually get sticky and warp at some point. This way you kill two birds with one stone. Good luck!

 

Yep, the fix is to take it apart. About 3K to get it all done right.

 

As above. I believe you'll find that the ONLY way to fix this is dash removal and recover with new leather and then replacing the windshield vents. The vents themselves can not be reattached as the studs holding them in place break. Ive seen quotes for $3-5K for removal and recover unless you do the removal part yourself.
Super common problem. Lots of threads on this over the years

 

Yes same problem here is there a way to flatten out the leather without taking out the dash? I know in the case of shrinkage you can't stretch it easily but in this case it's extra material so there should be a way to flatten it?

 

Asked and answered.

 

I ran a very large leather upholstery manufacturing company and we often used heat to shrink or tighten leather when the cover was slightly oversize in a small area on a sofa/love/chair. We used an electric heat gun for most jobs or a propane tiger-type torch for big jobs. It is VERY easy to overheat the leather and to permanently damage it, so much so that in a factory with 850 employees we only had 4 people that were allowed to use heat for leather fixes. Also, depending on the leather itself, the repair/tightening may be only temporary as over a period of time (hours to months/years) the leather may return to original size. That's because of differences in each piece of leather as individual cows can have different hide characteristics and the tanning process can vary slightly from batch to batch. If it was my car I'd have one of my expert staff try a very short, very gentle heat test on the leather and see what happened. After all, if the only fix is a complete replacement of the dash leather what does it matter if your heat experiment damages the current cover? If you want to see if you can fix it using heat but don't want to destroy it because you may not go to the expense of replacing the leather then try a very gentle experiment with a hair dryer on low setting and stop heating the leather the moment that you see any change in surface color or sheen. Keep the heat source moving and try not to heat outside of the area that needs to shrink...you don't want to shrink the stuff that fits correctly. Good luck! Bill

 

Dash must be removed. Leather can be re-stretched into place and held in with the metal vents bolted into place and leather edge glued and uphostery tacked into place. Doing anything without removing the dash is a waste of time. Removing the dash is not that hard to do. Several of us have successfully stretched the leather back forward. Not an easy thing to do but saved money better spent on more important mechanical things. If you screw it up, then send it out for new leather.

 

Re-read the shrink method and that might work at least for awhile. In my case, the lifting of the leather occurred because the vents had popped out so leather slipped back away from forward edge of dash. The dash leather problem is not a matter of if but when.

 

Skid did you have to deal with this on your 360? Sure doesn’t show any shrinkage or bubbling. I have it in temp/humidity controlled garage now, so I am hoping this helps preserve things such as that.

 

My '99 Modena has some ripples showing up.... more apparent in cold weather than in hot weather. I have thought about using some heat on the ripples to see if the leather will shrink..... but up to now, just haven't had the courage to do it. Vents are still in place, so not that bad. I be interested to hear from anyone that's tried a hair dryer or heat gun on their dash. Gotta be REAL careful with a heat gun. I have one for shrink tube, use it all the time, and it's very easy to get things much too hot.

 

My 02 360 had several bubbles to the right of the instrument pod. If I let it out in the sun, the bubbles would magically disappear only to return when the car sat in the garage the next day. I guess if you use a blow dryer you are trying to get the glue to re-adhere, problematic I'd say.

 

I didn't have it redone on the 360. I knew it was out there so I had picked up the metal vents. I have had it done my my 599. And yes, temp controlled garage will make a difference. Ultimately, the glue and the under padding foam degrade enough and it just releases. That is why this 'blow dryer fix' isn't going to work.

 

High temps and humidity can quickly degrade the integrity of these types of adhesives. The dash on a car, even a convertible, can reach very high temps outside, with the windshield acting as a magnifying glass of sorts. I don't expect anyone but me to drive a Ferrari this way, but I only drive mine when the outdoor temps are moderate - somewhere in the 60s-70s-to possibly low 80s. In the summer, that means evening drives near dark. In the fall, pretty much all day. Warm winter days. Where I live, there are usually 30 degree swings between the highs and lows each day. So in the summer, it could be 94 during the day (and 110 in the garage), down to 64 that night. Therefore, I built a garage just for the 360 that stays at 68 degrees year round with no deviation. We got down to 17 degrees the other night and I ventured out to the Ferrari lodge, and it was a nice toasty 68 degrees in there. Happy car.

Of course you can drive your Ferrari any time you like, but when you subject it to high outdoor temps, say hello to dash shrinkage and stickies.

 

If those of us in the deep South let the temps dictate when we drive our cars, we could not drive from early May - November for sure and many weeks from Nov - May would be out of your drivable temp range. But, no winter storage to deal with. Considering that, re-stretching the dash leather every now and then is not so bad.

 

so is that what they do - re-stretch it and glue it back down?

 

I pulled the leather back forward thru the vent holes where it had pulled way from the forward/vent edge of the dash. Used wide duck bill type welding vise grips to pull and then "toggle" the leather over the lip of the vent slots. The metal vents were turned upside down(rounded edges on leather to avoid marring leather and clamped and screwed into the slots to hold the alcohol sprayed leather in place for 24 hours. The leather was then glued down and stapled on the underside of the slots and forward dash edges. Staples were extremely short upholstery tacks. Button head screws and bolts hold the metal vents mounted right side up hold the vents in place. The screw ends had to be trimmed flush to fit on the dash panel.

 

what kind of glue was used?

 

I've never done it myself however I have read of people using a fine needle syringe to inject glue into the bubbles and then place a weight on top until it sets. A bit like a doctor treating a boyle ha ha ha !! I guess you have nothing to loose so good luck

 

Contact adhesive(Barge) but it does not do much keep the leather the leather from pulling back. The bolted in vents do all the work. Upholstery staples help for the areas forward of the vents.
I tried the adhesive in syringe method years ago on a Porsche leather dash and it did not work well. Left pucker marks around the injected plugs of adhesive.

 

So if the dash is bubbling because the vents have popped and one removes the dash and installs new vents could the leather be restretched to the original?

 

One would think. If I understand correct, it is the adhesive that fails, not the leather. So the key is the proper adhesive. You don’t want to tear all that out, use a cheap-o spray adhesive, then look up to find it’s a mess again on the first warm day.

 

My dash the 3 mm foam that's glued to the leather that disintegrated then created the bubbles with the heat. The crappy ABS vents pop once the leather starts to dry shrink and starts to lift the vents the clips can't hold the forces of the leather shrinking it's like a tsunami.
Cheers
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On the Ferrari 360 issue it tends to be more of an issue that the foam underneath the leather has degraded, allowing for the leather to contract, so the foam has to be scraped off first, and to do this, the dash and leather must be removed.

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