How hard is it to repair a cut dash?

[jonathan-m]

PO's handy work (never mind my jury rigged gauges )




And thanks to fellow member Alan'sClassic I got a replacement center section cut out:





I obviously won't be installing this myself, but I was wondering how big of a job I should expect this to be to have welded in properly. Also, how much of that replacement would you think needs to be used?
I rewired an original radio to interface with an ipod, and I'm itching to try it out, but its kinda hard to do with the grand canyon cut out right where my radio should go.

[protrash64]

Its pretty easy to do, but takes time to weld it without adding too much heat to the dash metal. Heat will make it warp. You will also have an area to repaint as it will probably need to be ground down after welding. Touch of body work to get it pretty??

[jonathan-m]

Ya i was wondering whether the dash metal would be super easy to warp. it looks pretty thin.
I'm not terribly worried about repainting, that'll be a couple years down the line. I am a little bummed about losing the dash paint though, its the only original paint left in the truck.

[Northern lights]

I made an aluminum plate for mine. A welded in patch panel would certainly be better but this was easy and didn't require a repaint.

[jonathan-m]

Thats actually a really cool idea, I might really go with that for the time being. My truck wont be painted for a few years, and I really don't like the idea of screwing up the dash paint.