IF YOUR RIG’S interior is old, cracked and broken, with all the life sucked out of it, Coverlay Manufacturing, Inc. of San Angelo, Texas comes to the rescue with their dash covers, door panels and armrests that can transform that desiccated interior into good as new condition.
Coverlay started humbly enough more than 25 years ago when Paul Cornwell saw the need for replacement dash covers. The original name of the company was Import Auto Products, Inc., with the original intent, obviously, to import aftermarket products and sell them to body shops in the Denver area.
One of the company’s first successes was a dash cover for the Datsun 240Z. The dash was not only well accepted in the marketplace, but generated queries for other models. Cornwell figured the covers couldn’t be that hard to manufacture. He and his partners canvassed vehicular bone yards in Colorado in search of intact dashes. They made molds, vacuum- formed samples and headed to Las Vegas for the 1983 Specialty Equipment Marketing Association (SEMA) Show.
“They had product for a few models, mostly Datsun 240Zs and VW Bugs,” recalls current general manager Frank Madrigal. “They sold everything they brought.”
As the company grew, Cornwell realized Colorado, while scenic, created weather-related problems for the business-mostly interference from excessive ice and snow. He and his partners checked out a map of the U.S. and decided San Angelo was near the center of Texas and possibly the deadon center of the country’s population, if not the known world. In 1992, Import Auto Products moved to San Angelo, changed its name to the trademarked name of its product — Coverlay — and grew into an over 100,000-square-foot facility that houses research and development, sales, manufacturing and shipping.
The ABS plastic Coverlay uses includes properties of high durability and resistance to hot temperatures — up to 195 degrees to be exact.
The exact mix of the plastic is a company secret, but it includes a combination of acrylic, polypropylene, rubber and other elements that hold up under extreme punishment. The durability of the product allows Coverlay to offer a limited-lifetime warranty — the vehicle under the dash may disintegrate, but the dash won’t, and neither will it warp, crack or discolor. The UV protectants are embedded in the products during the dye process, which produces a match nearly-identical to the original.
Left: Plastic sheet is pulled over the mold.
Right: Vacuuming forming sucks the plastic over the mold.
Left: Popping rivets through the trip from the backside of the panel.
Right: Applying glue on the underside of panel.
Matching the carpet fabric on the door panels presents its own unique problem. The foundation of the product line is, for obvious reasons, older vehicles with intrinsic value — pickups and 4x4 classics, traditionally kept through a series of rebuilds, ranking high among the list of available models. The manufacturers of the original fabric simply don’t have the match available. That hasn’t stopped Coverlay, though. “Our fabrics work harmoniously with the vehicle’s interior,” says Madrigal. If you’re thinking the new door panel may not hold up any better in off-road treks, think again. According to Madrigal, new Coverlay products start with a phone call — some guy with a cracked and broken car part. The company researches the request to ensure a mold won’t be developed for a single need, but here’s the one question always asked if the broken part is a door panel: “Where did the old panel fail?” That’s a valuable bit of information, because, as Madrigal points out, “We take that information and make the new door panel stronger in the area that failed on the original.”
So, what exactly is the technological magic behind Coverlay? We’ll use the dashboard covers for our example — they’re simple, relatively speaking, since some of the door panels include up to 25 individual pieces.
As already noted, the process starts with that phone call. Step two is hunting down a pristine dash to use as the basis for the mold. The making of the mold is another of those company secrets, so we’ll have to gloss right over that. The mold, like a spatial negative, is secured to the vacuum former and a sheet of wet plastic is pulled over it. The vacuum, basically, sucks the plastic against the mold, replicating the original dash in every detail. “The plastic shrinks as it cools,” says Madrigal. “You have to give it a chance to cool, to take the time to get it right.”
Left: Rough cutting-strip away extra plastic.
Right: Dash cover coming out of the paint booth.
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COVERLAY
Left: One of final steps on door panels-with carpet/fabric attached.
Right: Finished panel with carpet and fabric installed.
Depending on the size of the finished product, other elements can be sucked out of the single sheet of plastic. (Note how there’s a door panel piece tucked into the corner above the dash cover in photo 2.)
After the plastic has been allowed to cool, the excess is cut away and the cover is ready for its finished trim. Both processes are done by hand. The next step is the paint booth for a color match and dose of UV protection. Then they’re tagged, bagged and shipped.
Coverlay’s dash covers are exactly that — 1/16-inch covers that go over the original dash — pliable enough to get into the vehicle for installation. You don’t have to be a mechanical wizard to do the install. The tools include paper towels, Windex or some other ammonia- based cleaner and a vehicle with a cracked dash. A tube of silicone sealer comes with the cover. The Coverlay dash has to bond with the materials in the old dash, which is why the ammonia- based cleaner is required. Years of vinyl dressing, spilled soda and layers of dirt have to be removed.
While the door panels and arm rests include a few more manufacturing steps (panel padding, fabric, and assembly), installation is nearly as simple. Unscrew the old, shredded one and push on the new one that simply clips to existing fasteners. Armrests install with one or two screws, or clip on-depending on the specific model.
If you’re thinking your rig is too youthful to need this kind of interior facelift, you may be in for a surprise. While Madrigal admits that older vehicles are the company’s bread and butter, a whole new market has opened up, thanks, in large part, to the original equipment manufacturers’ focus on revving up the performance end of their pickups.
According to Madrigal, the OEs are neglecting the interiors, using plastic material made in China and missing some of the elements that give the product flexibility and durability. The horror stories of prematurely cracking dashboards come into Coverlay on a regular basis. “We’re taking advantage of the OEs lack of interest in the interiors,” he says. “That’s where our business is headed.”
If you’ve followed the example of the OEs and spent half a lifetime and a small fortune on your rig’s exterior and powertrain, but left the interior to fade, crack, tear and buckle, you might want to head for Coverlay. Your dash and door panels will thank you.
