AC dash install questions

[Jtrux]

I found an AC dash already out of a truck this past week and it was in great shape so i'll probably go buy it later or another one. For all you body guys out there what would I be getting myself into to change out my dash for the AC dash. I know that I could just cut the holes and be done with it but some PO of my blazer was apparently a hard core NON smoker and took out my ash tray and patched it. I want it to be completely stock looking so i'm gonna swap out the entire thing.

[Big J]

Its not too hard, I'm no professional and I did it
Its in my build thread some where. Take a look and it'll give you an idea. I just cut all the slots down the middle and then the brackets behind. I think I had to take out 2 or 3 bolts on each side in behind the dash too. The hard part is all the spot welding, takes awhile to stitch it in....

[Critter]

Originally Posted by Big J

Its not too hard, I'm no professional and I did it
Its in my build thread some where. Take a look and it'll give you an idea. I just cut all the slots down the middle and then the brackets behind. I think I had to take out 2 or 3 bolts on each side in behind the dash too. The hard part is all the spot welding, takes awhile to stitch it in....

So you are saying that the horizontal part of your dash where the defrost vents are remained untouched? You made your "splice" under the dash pad in other words? That doesn't sound too bad.

[vtblazer]

Originally Posted by Critter

So you are saying that the horizontal part of your dash where the defrost vents are remained untouched? You made your "splice" under the dash pad in other words? That doesn't sound too bad.

Correct, it's the simplest/quickest way by far.

Or you could remove the entire dash which will mandate removing all those spot welds and beware, there's alot of em.
Would also mandate removing the windshield doing it that way.

If your hoping to run factory A/C later on, the firewalls are different between A/C and non-A/C trucks also.

The simple fix there is just swap out that area of the firewall from the A/C donor truck.

[Huck]

U have 2-3 bolts on both side--then using any kind of a cutter--just slice the leading edge behind the pad allowing enough metal to overlap or butt up. You will have a little cutting issue at both corners where you unbolted but--it's a whole lot easier then full repl and once done, the pad covers the tac welds perfectly. I've done several---. Pretty easy.

[Jtrux]

That's pretty cool, looks like i'll def have to go back and get one now, I thought it was a lot more work than that.