Center of dash bouncing up and down over bumps

[JasonPAtkins]

Hi all, I have a 2011 Avalanche LTZ that I recently purchased (so I'm not sure what manner of previous trauma caused this damage), but the center of the dash bounces up and down noticeably over bumpy roads, around the speaker grille. I've also found broken plastic pieces in the driver left A/C vent, so I'm assuming possibly the impact of the rear driver's side hit that happened before I got it might have broken a clip or something that's normally supposed to attach the dash cover to the structure underneath it?

Does anyone know what's supposed to attach the middle of the dash?

I forgot this morning, but next time I'm in it I'll get a 10 second video of what I'm talking about.

Parenthetically, I see the subforum for Avalanches and am hoping to get some good advice from this site in general and that subforum specifically. I'm outfitting my Avalanche for life in West Africa where I live, and have lots of questions. I've tried registering several times on chevyavalanchefanclub.com's forums, but I don't think the site has an active admin anymore to approve new user requests, so although the current members keep posting, new members (or at least I) can't get approved to post.

 

[Fosscore]

Welcome. You might be the first I have come across in those parts. What part of W. Africa are you in? Should have fun putting that Avy together to handle the continent.

 

[JasonPAtkins]

I’m a Michigan boy who’s been living the last 11 years in West Africa (Guinea-Bissau) with my family. I teach at a non-profit trade school (welding and a bit of machining) in a remote area. For the last 8 years our vehicle over there has been a 4wd basic 2003 Explorer. It has done OK, but on the heavily pot-holed roads over there, it’s left us stranded a time or two.


We’ve just purchased the Avalanche that I’ll be fixing and outfitting over the next few weeks and sending over via ocean freight in early December. Once it gets there and clears customs, we’ll be selling our Explorer and hopefully never looking back.

 

[Fosscore]

Nice work man. That's some good service. There is so much great information on this forum. Do a little searching, surf the thread, ask a question.

The nice thing is the Avalance platform is still within the NNBS Tahoe and Suburban profile for parts, etc... and the maintenance, mods, etc....can also work. There are some nice Avalanches lifted and lowered on here. Just need to go down the forum section on the upper left and get down to the NNBS section and do some reading.

 

[Meccanoble]

Saying hello from afar. I got family in Nigeria. This generation of trucks has common issue with cracks on the dash. You can see the cracks near airbag on passenger side or on top of hump on driver side and maybe even near grill. There is a video on you tube showing someone removing the dash. Maybe in that process you can find weak points in your dash where it should be tighter? There are clips that can be missing or broken causing more vibration than the norm.

As always, pictures/video help a lot with determing where/what issue is.

 

[Fosscore]

Here is a massive thread started back in 2009 here on the TYF. This is a common issue. My 2013 Suburban has 3 cracks in front of the passenger airbag on the skinny section and the middle bounces a bit.

http://www.tahoeyukonforum.com/threads/front-dash-crack.3483/page-46

There are many threads and some fix it threads dealing with the dash crack in the NNBS models. Just type dash crack in the search box and scroll through what threads pop up.

 

[JasonPAtkins]

I see the cracks in the other thread you guys are talking about. I don't have those, fortunately. After watching a video of someone taking the dash apart, I figured out that the clips are broken that hold the two dash pieces together (clips which are on the piece closest to the windshield and fortunately is easy to replace).

 

[Meccanoble]

Happy for you

 

[JasonPAtkins]

That piece still isn't cheap - looks like $130 or so used. I think I might pull the broken clips out of the retainers they broke off into and see if I can't reattach them to this upper trim piece. Seems like 2 part epoxy is probably the best bet for a trim plastic on trim plastic bond?

 

[Rocket Man]

I good epoxy should work to reattach the clips. Interested to see how you outfit your truck for West Africa. Send us some pictures of the countryside if you can. And the Avy of course!