nyone rebuilt the metal on the dash around radio?

[roadgrime]

well a few months ago some punk @$$ wanne be criminals broke into the jeep and tried to get the radio. aside from breaking the locks on the door screwing up the wires in the dash they destroyed the metal around the glove box that held in the radio. the upside they bled all over the glove box since the metal was very very sharp... and the razor blades mounted on the back of the radio didnt help much...

anyhow they didnt get the radio and so i have been out this weekend trying to reshape the metal and get the radio mounted but there is just too much damage. so have any of you rebuilt the metal around the glove box? mounted radios etc? got pics ideas ? lets hear it

thanks,

[4x4n In A Cherokee In Colorado]

Well RG, being that you prolly dont want to do welding, how bout cutting a piece from a donor rig and either use button head rivets or try glueing the piece in with panel adhesive.. If you got a piece that went all the way accross, you may be able to hide the seams behind the dashpad and glovebox for the most part..

Just my 3 cents!
Take Care RG!
Carey

[roadgrime]

dont really care if i have to weld. since i got the mig, arc, and acy, I thought bout using aluminum but no tig ... the prob i see though is there are several compound/complex curvest that i would need to make and for that I dont have the tools.

after all this time i am still ticked off since my dash was one of the cleaner pieces i have on the jeep.

[JeepsAndGuns]

if I had a plasma cutter I could cut the part of the dash you need out of a old j-10 I parted out, but I dont have any way of cutting it.

[Ralph]

For all that trouble, why not just pull a dash from a salvage vehicle?

[roadgrime]

jeeps and guns well if you end up with something to cut it keep me in mind

Ralph thats a thought... the downside i see to that is the amount of work to remove everything and then get it back in in functioning order. Although the more i think of it if i could find one with a few less holes that might be alright

to calrify the portion of the dash thats torn up is where the three hole are above the glove box. currently the ash tray wont go in and out the clock on the right hand side is very loose and

the metal around the radio is so torn up that the radio bracket will slip right through it. plus the glove box wouldnt close although with some major tweaking i got it to close although tight.

I think tommorow I am gonna mess around with some card board templated and see what I can work up with some simpler bends that i can bend on my metal break.

[jeepguzzi]

Had mine destroyed in the same manner. Funny part is that the radio was broken, so the insurance paid for a new one.

What kind of idiot thief steals a three hole radio anymore?????

Anyway, I had a whole new dash installed. There really isn't that much involved in it. You already have the radio out, right?

The front metal dash bolts in to the firewall and any fsj dash of the same style should work. I would simply replace it. The results will look and work better, and you can rebuild your wiper linkage and ductwork while you're at it. You would have to probably at least remove the dash pad to weld anything, anyway, and you are only a short bit of work away from total dash removal at that point.

I have a tan dash already removed if you are interested.

[Great Pharoah]

You should be extremely carefull about the blood, and scrub it off with lots of bleach, and make sure none of it gets on you. One of the slime might have Hep C, and you don't want to risk that. Was your radio a two shaft job similar to stock, or did you have a DIN type with no shafts at all? If you had a two shaft you might think about using a DIN type as a replacement unit, I did that in a ferd f150 that had a two shaft mount and while it was a lot of work it turned out real good. As far as cutting, why not use a sawzall with a short hacksaw blade, or a small air grinder with a metal cutting blade. That and a little tapping with a hammer, some drilling, and using some JBWeld like it was bondo ought to do the trick. BTW my spouse had a nice Alpine ripped out of the dash in her Chrysler, thatwas mostly just screws and glue for broken plastic, and is as good as new, but no Alpine, just stock Chrysler. I did have to replace drivers side window. It's happened before. I never lock my cars anymore, especially the Mazda, it's too much work to replace windows and I don't even want to think about some crack head thief cutting my rag top, just let them take whats there and leave nothing there.
mike

[JeepsAndGuns]

Well RG, I might be able to borrow a sawsall from a friend, hes not a close friend, but he might let me borrow it. Do you have a pic of your dash you can put in "paint" and draw lines where you would want the cuts at? I I can get him to let me borrow it, the soonest I could cut it would be this weekend.

[roadgrime]

Ripstar I used some stuff I had in my first aid kit for cleaning up the blood. good stuff its like a caustic soup made for biohazard clean up.. and yea the dash had been cut for a DIN so the hole is now way to big....

JeepsAndGuns.

let me get back to you I have a couple templates that I might be able to do myself with the tools I have in the garage... what I wouldnt give for an english wheel

[71'JRide]

I used 1/8" diamond plate alluminum and a 36" metal break. The screws will soon be rivets when all wiring repairs are done and radio cut in.

two piece, upper and lower