Like many of our cars, Ole Red suffered from the dreaded vinyl curl...the edges of the padded vinyl around the various console pieces had peeled away from the structural plastic and curled up and looked generally crappy, so I decided it was time to do something about it. This being a common problem, I kept notes of what worked and how I did various parts of the job, and am herewith posting the info to the list.

Since each part had to sit overnight, this was a long process...I worked on it, on and off, for about 6 weeks, so it's a good over-winter project.

Anyway, here goes...

Materials:

Remove the console parts and disassemble as much as practical. Start with the shifter area. Unscrew the shifter knob, pull out the ashtrays and take out the screws holding that part in. The rear (main) console piece is held in by screws under the rear portion of the shifter console and by two screws accessible inside the "glove box" opening. When removing the rear console, you'll also have to remove the cover plate over the lighter/diagnostic port connector and disconnect the cigarette lighter. You may also have to temporarily remove the plate which holds the power window & lock switches (or the dummy if you have crank windows like my '86SE). Once the screws are out, each console piece lifts out cleanly.

The shifter trim plate is heat-staked to the shifter console, so you'll have to do a bit of destructive removal to separate it so you can reglue the top edges of that vinyl.

Take the "glove box" off the main console. There are two nuts on the inside of the console, hiding under the sound insulation. Be careful, though, with the cord that holds the box in the open position. I haven't found a non-destructive way to take it off, so I just unscrewed the box from the cover and left it tucked inside the cavity in the rear (vertical) part of the console.

Now is a good time to clean up all the vinyl plus get the crumbs, dust, and detritus out that have collected in nooks and crannies for the past 8 to 14 years (depending on how old your Fiero is). "Simple Green" or "Fantastik" work well, but keep the Fantastik away from painted surfaces!

The key to glue adhesion is surface preparation. Make SURE any fragments of the foam padding are off the hard plastic, and sand it to roughen it and give the glue something to hang onto. You can't really sand the inside of the vinyl, but a little scraping with a pocket knife will take off any encrustations and leave a slightly roughened surface. Do NOT take off the thick (1/8" or so) layer of foam that is padding, but DO take off feathery edges and thin areas from the part of the vinyl that wraps around to mate with the hard plastic.

After the parts are scraped/sanded, clean them thoroughly with alcohol. (Not your beer, mind you...) Get rid of any little particles of foam you have kicked up in the process and make sure there's no oil or grease from your hands where you want glue to stick!

Your clamp setup will vary from piece to piece. The key is to spread the clamping force over the whole area you need to bond, or you'll end up with waves...low where clamp jaws hit, high in the gaps. I found that some thin wood strips, like carpenter's shims, worked pretty well in most areas. However, for stretches that need to be clamped in two dimensions at once (across the width of the piece plus across the thickness [edge] as well), a piece of 1/2" aluminum 'L' channel worked quite well. Your best bet is to experiment with a couple of different clamp setups BEFORE you start gluing and see which one works best. Be forewarned...some of the shapes you'll need to clamp are tapered and tough to get anything to hold on consistently.

When clamping things, make sure the ooze of glue from the edge won't set up on your clamps. If there's any question, put a strip of waxed paper between the clamp and the workpiece, or stick a piece of scotch tape so it overlaps the edge of the vinyl and keeps the glue from getting on your clamps, wood, or whatever. Another warning here, though...the waxed paper will make it harder to keep the clamps from slipping, and the glue I used had only a 5-minute working time, so any slipups have to be fixed QUICKLY!

I used the bar clamps for cross-clamping on pieces like the shifter console and the glove-box door, and for the main console where I needed to clamp top-to-bottom on it. The spring clamps worked well for clamping the wraparound edge of the vinyl around the hard plastic skeleton. However, with these, you always need to use a piece of wood, or you WILL end up with dimples. The bar clamps I have are pretty "tall", that is, there is a couple of inches clearance between the bar and the jaws, so it's easy enough to slip a thin piece of wood in there and grab it with the spring clamps where necessary.

Occasionally you'll end up with a temporary dimple in another surface because of the clamp positions...these USUALLY will relax out by themselves, but if there's any question at all, spread the force out with a piece of wood so you don't leave a permanent mark.

The hardest piece to clamp up was the bottom edge of the "glove box" door, which consists of three straight lines, sort of \____/ although the angle is only about 5 degrees. For that, I cut three pieces of aluminum angle to fit. That part took the most clamps, 3 bar clamps with a piece of 1x4 at the top edge of the glove box door to spread the force, clamped top-to-bottom along the long axis of the door to hold the vinyl to the bottom edge, plus FIVE of the gripper clamps holding the aluminum strips to clamp the inside edge of the vinyl where it wraps around the ABS skeleton. Looking at the original foam, I don't think this piece was right as it came from the factory...the vinyl had never wrapped around the ABS all the way...it's better now than when Pontiac made it...we'll see if it holds through the summer heat. (UPDATE: After its second summer, things are ok, so far...)

After everything is glued and set, it's time to put the pieces back together. When reinstalling the glove box, make sure you get the hinge bolts lines up in the slots so the door fits flush and square...not too tough, but a little care goes a long way.

When replacing the shifter trim plate on the shifter console, I found that I had to clean out several of the holes where the parts had been heat-staked, or the trim plate wouldn't fit flush with the console (vinyl) piece. Once I got it to fit, I held in place temporarily with several large rubber bands, then dabbed some RTV onto the inside, overlapping the two pieces in areas which wouldn't show and wouldn't interfere with the ash tray door movement. Put the assembly upside down on a flat surface, with a couple of boards bridging the open (bottom) side of the console, and stick a phone book or other convenient weight on it overnight until the RTV cures thoroughly.

Now it's time to reinstall everything in the car...just reverse the disassembly procedure and make sure things line up as you put them in one at a time. Your console should now be back to like-new condition!