What the hell is that all about? I've seen dash boards crack, but not bubble and get unglued? I had a 1992 Beemer that a couple of door panels became unglued and bubbled, but they could remove the panels and carefully pry the vinyl off and re-glue them, but how the hell do you re-glue a dash? Any ideas? Is there a service bulletin? How the hell do you fix that?

 

This is a common problem on the XK/XKR and XF models, but not limited to Jaguar. My best friend's three Ferraris suffered from the same malady. In Jaguar's case, the problem is directly traceable to the fact that Jaguar chose not to overlap and staple the leather to the windshield side of the dash, and made it the sole "responsibility" of the adhesive to hold the leather down, an impossible task. There are hundreds of posts about this on the "Leather on dash 'pulling' post." I had my dash removed and the leather stretched back and stapled on the front edge and around the center speaker. It has been nearly 3 years, my car is parked outside every night, and typically spends 5 months per year "baking" in 90-110F temperatures in the San Fernando Valley, and has had no problems since we anchored the leather with staples.

Typically you'll notice "bubbles" around the center speaker and on each side, the windshield edge of the leather will not longer be fastened down, and in my case, the leather over the airbag was completely disattached. In retrospect, I think it would be possible to repair with removal of the windshield and stapling from the front, but would be a tight squeeze to get the stapler close.

Check out the related posts and you'll see some examples.

 

I had the misfortune of a cracked windshield and decided to take advantage. Now I only had a bubble on the side of the center speaker. None of the dash was shrinking or pulling away.

I decided to follow Tberg's advice and staple down the ends. They were in no way loose or coming loose as the ones you'll see in the links. I just had the bubble on the one side.

I had the glass man come out and remove the windshield and return a few days later to install the new one.

I couldn't drive a staple into the ends to save my life so I ended up using upholstery tacks spaced about on inch apart. Worked out fine EXCEPT, the vents are so incredibly brittle they broke into several pieces removing them, so currently I'm in search of a 3D printer solution to replace them. They cannot be purchased separately from the dash. You have been warned.

So about the bubble - After prising the vents and center speaker cover, I used the plastic prising tool and slid it under the leather from the speaker to the bubble.

I used a can of adhesive and bought a 2' piece of 1/8" clear plastic fuel line (used on lawn mowers and easily found in hardware and auto parts stores).

I cut the tip or the spray nozzle and spread a wee bit of glue on the line and slid it over. I let the glue set and gave it a few test sprays. The point of this is you don't want to hose to come loose from the tip while you're spraying glue.

I fished the line, following the tool path and held down the bubble while spraying. Worked like a charm. Then I slid the plastic prise tool forward and kept spraying while pressing down on the dash.

So the glass man came and replaced my windscreen and all is well. Glue seems to be holding fine.

Now to fix the damage I did to the plastic vents. Arrgh

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...pulling-51324/

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...g-dash-172398/

 

Sean,
We broke my defroster vents as well and just glued them back together. If you look very closely on mine you can see it, but you have to be looking for it. I tried for a long time to find them on ebay, salvage yards, etc. to no avail. The ones for the X100 are available all over the place but not for the X150.