67 – 72 F-100 Smooth Dash Made Easy wioth Zero Welding Involved!

From 1967 to 1972, all Ford F-100s, F-250, and F-350s left the production line with a dashpad sitting on top of a factory-formed metal dash. After 50 years of service, most of them have seen better days and either need to be repaired or replaced altogether. While the aftermarket support as of late has improved, there have not been too many choices for replacement pads.

Dashpad covers and overlays are a budget-minded option that can cover up the cracked and faded dashpad, but that is pretty much a Band-Aid over the real issue. Then there are the more expensive replacement pads that top $400 or more. Finally, there is the elusive NOS pad or even a pristine original. Those are like finding a needle in a haystack, and the money they bring can be sky-high.

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Once you removed a dashpad from one of these trucks, you can see the factory metal dash. The things that stands out the most are the slots where the studs from the pad pass through and the holes for the factory dash speaker. You may notice the formed metal could look really nice with those provisions filled in. Typically, people would pay a body shop to weld in metal fillers and do the bodywork. Some of the more garage-DIY guys might attempt to do it themselves if they have a welder and the skills.

So, now you might be thinking a smoothed dash would be a really nice touch on your truck, but you might be on a budget or don’t have a welder or the metal skills to do so. Well, today is your lucky day as we are going to show you step by step how to smooth your dash with no welding.

At this point you might be thinking Bondo. Well, yes, that will be involved, but that is not how we would do it or recommend it. When it comes to adhesives and paste films, technology is on your side. You may or may not be familiar with how cars and even aircraft are manufactured, but to make a long story short, most are bonded together in modern manufacturing processes.

Coming from an aviation background, I have been involved in the manufacture of aircraft for the past 20 years, mainly on the composites side. Where am I going with this? Having manufactured composite helicopter blades for most of my career, I have come to learn that bonding, or “gluing” in layman’s terms, has given a whole new meaning to the word strength. Not to get too in depth, but a helicopter blade by today’s standards, whether metal or all composite, are 100% bonded together. Once on the helicopter, they can see up to 10,000 hours of service with few to no failures. If you have ever seen what a helicopter blade goes through during flight you know they take a beating. They constantly flex and twist and have loads put on them that make you cringe.

So why are we talking about helicopter blades when we are trying to smooth a dash? Basically, the two-part epoxy technology that has been used in the aircraft industry for decades has moved over into the automotive industry. While not exactly the same, epoxies such as “Panel Bond” from a variety of manufacturers like 3M, Valvoline, and SEM to name a few, are available to anyone who wants to purchase them. They are easy to use and extremely strong.

Follow along as we show you how to smooth your dash with zero welding, readily available tools, and some sheetmetal. Oh, and don’t throw away that old dashpad quite yet, there is something you will need out of it.

Here, you see the factory metal dash. Wouldn’t those slots and holes look better filled in and smoothed?

First, collect all the necessary tools, thin-gauge metal, adhesives, cleaners, and fillers. Here we have the application gun, hand snips, pneumatic sheetmetal shears, angle grinder, 40-grit sanding disc, plastic swipe, aluminum tape, and the 3M Panel Bond.

Panel Bond requires the use of a specific application gun. They are readily available on the internet and at automotive paint supply stores. You can typically plan to spend between $50 and $100 for one. Ours is a well-used Albion B26 T200. Mixing tips are just below it.

First, remove the old dashpad to expose the bare metal dash. Clean the top as well as the underside with acetone or alcohol to remove the years of collected dirt. Fortunately, the cab we were working with had been blasted and primed. In addition, the entire floor had been removed for replacement, which made the job a little easier and made taking pictures a snap. Don’t fret though. Having the cab in its normal configuration is doable. It just requires some laying on the cab floor to do the initial work. However, the majority can be done through the front of the dash.

Once you have cleaned everything, scuff the areas around the slots and speaker holes with the 40-grit sanding disk. Most importantly, this needs to be done not only on the bottom of the dash where the metal doublers will be bonded, but on the top of the dash as well. Scuffing can be done by hand or preferably with the die grinder. Be generous as to extend out past the area that the doubler will cover.

After the metal is scuffed on the top and bottom of the dash, it is time to make the doublers that will bond to the bottom of the dash. We used 18-gauge cold-rolled steel cut into small pieces with the pneumatic shears. Ensure the pieces you cut have at least 0.5- to 1-inch overlap passed the hole you are covering. Hand form each piece to match the contour of the dash in their respective locations. They do not need to be exact, but get as close to the contour as possible. Label the dash and the doublers so nothing gets mixed up. You could also use 20-gauge steel as well. It is often available at your local hardware store in small 2×2-foot pieces.

Here are the doublers cut and formed, and then labeled to match where they go under the dash. You can see how much contour was put into the end pieces to match the dash.

Be sure to scuff the mating surface of the doublers with 40-grit as well. When bonding two metals together, the faying (mating) surfaces should both be scuffed with 40-grit.

Next, be sure to clean all surfaces that will be bonded with acetone or alcohol. The faying surfaces must be extremely clean for proper adhesion.

Now it is time to apply the adhesive. This is where we start to make a mess. With rubber gloves on, apply a very generous amount of adhesive to the doubler. After extracting the adhesive onto the doubler, use a plastic swipe or something similar to evenly spread the adhesive over the doubler. You want the adhesive an eighth- to a quarter-inch thick to provide squeeze-out on the sides of the doubler as well as squeeze-out through the hole you are covering in the dash. You want the adhesive to basically squeeze out above the surface of the dash. Do not apply adhesive to all the doublers at once; only do one or two at a time.

Once the doubler has adhesive on it, it is time to bond it in. Simply locate where it goes, put it in place, put a little pressure on it to ensure squeeze-out around the edges and through the hole (holes) in the dash, and then put tape over it to hold it in place. Keep in mind the doubler does not need to be perfectly square with the hole. It just needs to cover the hole completely.