OK, so I found a local socal 320i, non S with low miles, a great motor/trans, drives awesome but needs paint and the dash is messed up. The car sat outside the last few years and the dash has many cracks. I have a couple of options. I have an old S package with a bad motor and rust everywhere, but a good interior sitting around. It has a decent dash (about 3 small cracks) that I can probably fix and switch over, or I was looking into the dash caps. If I was to go with the dash cap, has anybody done those and how well do they fit? I guess there are a couple of different manufacturers, does anybody know which is the best quality manufacturer?
The dash cap is certainly the easiest and cheapest solution, but if the car is in otherwise good to excellent condition you should consider installing a new or uncracked used dashboard. It's a big job especially if the car has air conditioning, but I was glad I went with a new dash in my '77 restoration project. Regarding new vs. used, by the time you go through the labor of removing the old dash, you probably won't want to consider anything but an uncracked dash. I couldn't find an uncracked used dash for a first generation E21 so I wound up buying the last one BMW had.
