Grease on dash? WTF is this?, pulled the covering, black 'paint" comes off like grease? Purple power is strong stuff! Options

[Calwaterbear]

Ok so I pulled off the dash cover and the old fabric and foam dash liner to the front window. The metal looks to be painted black, with some weird swirls of yellow. so I hit it with purple power sparay to clean it up and the black comes off like a layer of soot? its yellow paint on the metal.

I have no idea whats going on? is the purple power liquifying black paint?
the black is dry and appears stable till I hit it with the spray - then most of it comes right off with a sponge or a paper towel?

anyone seen this? or have any idea whats going on?

My plan is to put the foam and vinyl covering in place - no glue, just tuck it in. Then secure the front with the window trim rubber seal, and the back side will be held under the new dash pad, an i thinking about that correctly?

edit: so I went back and read the label on the Purple Power. it says don't use on automobile finishes and painted surfaces - so I'm guessing its disolving paint?

[Calwaterbear]

Ok so now I'm confused again. I have the 914 rubber dash cover =- pre cut with the foam liner as well. but i'm pretty sure the foam liner is the same size as the dash cover vinyl. so how do you put glue on the ends of the vinyl without getting it on the foam?

[wonkipop]

Ok so now I'm confused again. I have the 914 rubber dash cover =- pre cut with the foam liner as well. but i'm pretty sure the foam liner is the same size as the dash cover vinyl. so how do you put glue on the ends of the vinyl without getting it on the foam?

to help, i pulled out my old lhd dash took some photos.

mostly as per bkrantz guidance.

glue holding vinyl down on mine has long since aged and failed. but the vinyl retains its shapes and glue traces are still visible on the metal dash structure. foam is still mostly glued down. the vinyl was not glued to the foam. no trace or evidence of that anywhere.

foam is trimmed to the top of the step in the metal dash on the inner edge.
not a great deal of evidence of glue that would have held the vinyl down along its edge on metal below the step or on back of vinyl. but underside of vinyl shows it might have been. could have been just a few dabs along the edge if any.

along front edge (windscreen), vinyl was wrapped around edge of the metal and glued to the underside. looks like the person who made it used a 4 inch wide paint brush and just ran it along the underside of the dash! interestingly the vinyl was trimmed in the centre section and did not wrap under (see last photo). the wrapping and glueing under was from the left and right hand sides around the vents and in towards the centre a little further. don't know why that centre section was trimmed to edge and not folded under.

think the way they put it on might have been to glue the vinyl down along the inner edge where it was going under dashtop or perhaps even restrained it with dash top that was fixed on (could be wrong but i wonder if dash went in to car with top already fixed on during production). with the inner edge fixed or restrained you could stretch it towards front edge of dash and work your way along edge glueing and trimming and snipping in the right places. does that make sense. in other words i think the factory did it maybe differently to how most restorers would in terms of the steps. ie top might have been glued around front edge after dash top was fixed on. its a thought.