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A couple weeks ago, a guy posted on here with a 3d bracket model for fastening the cluster shroud to the dash. That got me going on another project I needed to do, repairing my cluster shroud. As shown in the pictures, various screw bosses and all the studs have been broken out of my shroud. I had many years ago repaired the turn signal studs with all-thread and JB Weld. This time, I'm wanting to do the rest of the repairs right by modeling and printing replacement parts to repair what's broken. This first set of pics shows the current state of my shroud.
busted out upper screw bosses busted out upper screw bosses top LH cluster stud broken previous repair of turn signal studs Previous repair of cruise control studs RH cluster stud broken LR Boss broken SS Boss Broken
Last edited by professionalpyroman; Jun 6, 2021 at 07:13 PM.
I printed washers to fill the gaps below the current ones, as they were mostly intact and just lost some of the inner diameter. I made 2 thicknesses of washers to try. 1/8" thickness was good and sturdy, but made the screw heads poke out enough where it was gonna bug me. I printed out some 1/16" thick ones and those fit in very nice. Just have to glue them in. Here is some pictures, and those models.
The second model is for the lower left screw boss that broke off. I made this tab so that the old boss can be cleaned out, and this new tab can lay over the old one and provide some additional strength. New boss with tab. It is supposed to fit in the hole once the old part is drilled out. Goes underneath the turn signal tab
Ok, so the repair was a little bit more involved than I had originally intended. If you've had a look through the posted models, I have a pin and stud design to replace the broken screw studs that hold the switch clusters in the shroud. These were meant to provide new studs to screw into, and the pins were supposed to align them but it didn't work out that way. The broken studs that I hadn't tried to repair yet were too far gone for this simple solution. I tried to use the alignment pin with the stud, and the bases of the old studs just crumbled. I then went with a repair like I did the first time. I tapped out what remained of the studs to a #6-32 thread like the others, and JB welded some #6-32 all-thread. From there, I took the 3d printed studs and cut it up to set the depth on all the various clusters. These were tapped the same and screwed onto the all-thread before any clusters. After these spacers were made, I took some more JB weld and filled in the gaps between the new spacers on the all-thread studs and the remaining original studs/previous repairs. These turned out a much better result than I originally had. Also, I put a depth collar on the lower cruise control stud so that the slide-in panel sat correctly. The model press-fits, but you can glue it if you want. I used a bunch of epoxy anyway... Pictures of this to follow.
The second thing I did was repair the lower screw bosses with 3d printed parts. Using some plastic snippers and a knife, I removed the semi-circular broken bosses, so my 3d printed pieces would snap in.
I tried the fitment of the original model I made at 1/8" thickness, and it was just to thick and obstructed the lower nut for the turn signal switch. I thinned that piece out to 1/16" and that fixed one fitment issue. The second issue was that these little bosses were slightly smaller in diameter than the uppers. The upper bosses comfortably fit a 9/16" washer/boss replacement, while the lower ones were much closer to 14mm. I ended up changing that boss diameter to 14mm, but left the track width of my model at 13/16" and they snapped in perfectly. The grabcad model has been updated to reflect these changes. If you need these, print two of them. You will need to trim each differently. The turn-signal side needs to have some length trimmed off of it, while the cruise control side needs one of the side ramps trimmed off of it. From there, I used the same JB to stick them in place. I am just waiting for them to dry.
Last edited by professionalpyroman; Jun 10, 2021 at 09:25 PM.
Spacers and collar installed on previous repair for cruise switch RH cluster stud w/ all-thread and spacer LH cluster stud w/ all-thread and spacer Trimming for Cruise Side (upper) and Turn Signal (lower) Cruise Boss bottom Cruise Boss top Turn Signal Boss bottom Turn Signal Boss top
That's a good idea using the studs. I wouldn't have the patience doing that. I'd just buy a good used or new shroud. My problem is that the plastic pieces on the dash that hold that shroud all have broken off. Not sure what I can do about it for a fix.
