Dash Board Removal?

[luke-ao]

(68 F100)

Can the dash board be removed from the F100? I see several areas where it's bolted in, but where transitions up under the windshield rubber makes me wonder if it's spot welded in place. (??)

I have a bunch of welding, repair and customizing to do on the panel and would rather remove it instead of messing with it in the cab. Also I need to get at the fire wall for painting and resealing all the seams, removing the dash would make life much easier!

[sargentrs]

The cowl and dash are spotwelded together about every 2", from pillar to pillar. You have to remove the windshield and rubber seal to get to them.

[luke-ao]

Hummm, is that the only place it's welded?

Ford seemed to go nuts with the spot welding back in the 60's, I've removed many panels over the years, does it end up looking like a cheese grader after removal?

I would prefer to weld up all the holes from drilling out the spot welds and bolt the dash it back in if possible(??)

[sargentrs]

Maybe this can shed some light? http://www.fordification.com/forum/view ... p?p=388202

[luke-ao]

Cool, thanks for the link.

[chad67]

I am actually in the middle of this project myself. There are a bunch of spot welds under the windshield rubber as mentioned previously. There are 3 layers of metal: cowl, firewall, and dash-all spot welded together. I am finding that in some places only 2 layers are welded to each other as if 1 piece was semi-attached until the other was put on and all 3 welded together. This doesn't matter to me as I am swapping the dash and cowl to make 1 cab out of 2. I would get about 6" drilled loose and then use a big screwdriver to pry between the firewall and dash as not all the welds may be through all 3 layers. This could save drilling and rewelding the welds that are only through the cowl and firewall, but not through the dash.

[luke-ao]

Yea, I'm not sure if it's worth the effort for what I'm doing. I only wanted to remove it to do some custom sheet metal work it then re install. Still debating the pros and cons...

[luke-ao]

Moving at a snails pace but I got the dash out, it was painless. Now I can get to all the seams to re-seal them, work on the custom dash and paint.
Glad I went for it after trying to talk myself out of all the work! .
(The trans tunnel patch is not done, still have to "cut in and trim" for the final install, patch is much smaller than it looks here.

[jimmy828]

man that is some serious work there. I don't think i could have done all that due to not being that experienced . Hope to see final assembly.