Radio panel repair

[Damien]

The dash is spot welded along the windshield channel. The windshield has to be out of the truck to get at the welds. I took the dash out of a parts truck by drilling the welds with a spot weld cutter from the outside because there is not enough room to get at them with a drill from the inside. The seam has three pieces of steel there and in some places four. The cab was falling apart by the time I got the dash out. To put the new dash in another truck, you would need to cut most of the old dash out with a tin snips or sawsall. Then there is room to drill out the spot welds. The new dash would then have to be spot welded or plug welded to the pinch weld in the windshied channel.

I was going to put this dash in a cab that the PO hacked out, but decided I could fix the rust in an unmolested cab much easier.

To fix the radio I would just patch a new piece in verus replacing the whole dash. You could weld/screw/rivet/bond in a piece from another dash or make a new piece for a fraction of the work of replacing the whole dash and have the same results.