Has anyone attempted to dye the dashboard in place
 

Hi in the next week or so i'm going to attempt to dye my leather dashboard from red to black. I would rather not remove the dashboard to do this. I have seen members of this forum dye seats to the original color with success. I have also seen members make color changes to steering wheels with good results. Has anyone tried to change the color of a leather dashboard? If you have did you spray on the dye or sponge it on? I know I have to take all the plastic stuff off of the dash to do a good job. I'm wondering if after I do that should i just remove the whole thing? If I remove it should I attempt to dye it still or just get one in black. Thanks in advance for any guidance.

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Here is how it looks now. I want to change the dash to black and paint the three black plastic trim strips silver.

You could always make a test run on the passenger side center console cover. I would go the sponge way on leather.

Good idea Kram, I was going to do a test run on my old red drivers seat. I'm kinda surprised that no-one has tried a color change on the dash before.

It seems intimidating but the dash isn't too hard to get out. I'm switching one out this weekend. If I remember, I'll take pics and start a thread.

I've done some dash removal pieces and covered them with leather. I'd highly recommend you remove the dash. It's a zillion screws, but not too bad. Just a couple of hours work.

If you remove it, you will be able to do a much better job with the dye and be able to look at it from different angles and get to spots you will not be able to easily get to without getting dye on the windshield and other places such as plastic parts.

Well after reading the dash removal PDF posted by a member named Meir last year I may take it out. After taking all the plastic pieces off I planed on doing anyways, there isn't much more than a few screws left.

Maybe I should just change the red door panel carpet to black and use those. So I could have red dash, door panels, roll bar pads and center console pads. With black seats and carpet. What do you guys think of that? I'll dye the door panel carpet tonight and post a picture tomorrow.

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This what it looks like with a black door panel. So now i'm considering either black dash with silver trim strip. Or keep the red dash and change the door panels back to red. :confused:

I've applied 3 coats of black dye to my once brown steering wheel airbag. It is really starting to look black now. I'm using the sponge method and it seems to be working well. I wasn't prepared for how runny the dye is. I'm glad i'm doing this at work. The wife would have killed me if i spilled it all over the dining room table :eek:

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Well I did it. It took about 10 coats so far. I still need to paint the trims in the dash silver and a little more dye. I think it came out pretty good.

Looks like a different steering wheel to me. How did you do that with dye or maybe I need to change my eyeglasses?

Larry (The Bald Eagle)

Yes the steering wheel is different, I did have to dye the airbag on the new wheel.

Looks good!

Dang!!!! Awesome!

Wow. Impressive!

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Thanks guys. Here it is with the dash trim strips painted silver. I still need to do some touch up on the dye, but i'm happy with it so far.

what a difference...really nice job.

I tried to color a green shifter leather boot once, no success, the black color came off pretty fast, hope your color stays on.

Did you end up taking out the dash?

It looks great. I will be tackling a alcantara/suede dash wrap here shortly.