MadDem13

I have seen several members ask about taking off the dashboard in both the Tech and ICE forums, but I haven't seen a DIY on it. A few weeks ago, I took my dash off for the second time and decided to take pics along the way in case anyone needed them.

The follwing steps can be done in almost any order. I am simply going follow the order in which I did them.

The first thing to do is diconnect the battery (sorry, no pics. Ha!)
Next, open both door and check out the traingle shaped plastic inserts on the side of the dash. They look like this:



Take a flathead screwdriver and pry these panels out. They are held on by clips. Be careful not to scratch the plastic. You might want to wrap the end of the screwdriver with a cloth.

Now it should look like this:



Take a Phillips head screwdriver to the two bolts on each side.

MadDem13

You'll most likely notice in the last pic that the AC vent is out. This can be your next step. Using your flathead screwdriver, pry out the vents. Again, be careful not to scratch the dash. Using a cloth is not a bad idea.

The next thing that I did was remove the glove box. Looking underneath the glovebox, you will see two screws holding it in. Remove these with a Phillips-head screwdriver (no pics)

There are 2 fasteners on either side. They look like this:



Work these fasteners out and the glovebox will come free. The opening where the golvebox was should look like this:



Remove the three bolts in the picture with the Phillips screwdriver.

MadDem13

Now that the glovebox is out, lets remove the latch that holds it closed... It is held on by three screws and looks like this:



The fat lady is now singing on that glovebox. Now that it is offically done, we can go at the passenger airbag. Lay down on the floorboard and look up. You will see that the airbag assembly is held on by three bolts. It should look like this:




Go ahead and unclip the wiring harness to the airbag. It is yellow and on the left-hand side (no pics). Once done, remove the three bolts. Now the airbag assemby can be removed. You have to push the threaded prongs through the bracket and simultaneously lift the assembly out and up. This is a good time to have a helper. One of you can push the threads through the bracket while the other one lifts the assembly out from above.

MadDem13

The next step is to get out of the car and then plop down over in the driver's seat. We are going to get rid of that pesky steering wheel. There is a screw on each side of the assembly that look like this:


They have a wierd star shaped-hex pattern (called a torx). Try to find the appropriate fitting head so that you don't strip them. Once these screws are out, you can remove the front cover of the steering wheel. You'll notice that the airbag assembly comes out with the front panel. Remove the yellow clip and place it somewhere safe. You should now see this:

MadDem13

Go ahead and unclip the horn wire (Blue and on the left in the pic above) and also the clip going to the cruise control button on the right (green in the pic above).

The next thing to do is remove that giant bolt from the center of the steering wheel. Now would be a good time to mention that you should have ensured that your wheels are straight before starting this project (doh!). Once the bolt is off, wiggle the wheel from side to side as you pull. It will come off ten times easier that way.

Now you can remove the plastic from the steering column. Go ahead and remove the lower 2 panels. The underneath panel is held in by clips. Pop it out. The panel directly under the steering column has 2 turning clips. Turn the clips and pull downward to remove the panel. Now you should get down on the floorboard (hope you vaccuumed) and look up. There are 3 phillips screws on the bottom of the column. Looks like this:

MadDem13

Once the screws are out, the top and bottom pieces are only held together by clips. Go ahead and use your flathead and cloth to pry them apart. It should now look like this (except you guages are still in):



This is the part that I screwed up on. I was a wuss and was too scared to take apart the levers for the turn signals and wipers. It is a pain to get the dash off later b/c it will not clear these levers. You have to bend them. I ended up breaking internal parts of the one on the left as you can read in another post. The good news was that a new part was only $20. That and it got me over the fear of taking it apart. The bad news is that I don't have pics for these steps... They're easy though. The first step is to unclip all of the wiring from the back of the "combination switch."

There is a bracket that holds the switch assembly to the steering column. There is only one screw holding it down. Loosen this screw (it will not come all of the way off) and you can pull off the combination swich and levers. This will give you the clearance that you need later to get the dash out and then back in.

MadDem13

Now that the wheel is out of the way, lets remove the guages. There are two phillips screws in the top of the plastic visor surrounding the guages. Remove these. Once they are out, use the flathead to pry the top out so you can get a good hold on it. Now pull with all of your might to get the visor out. It is in there good.

Now you can remove the guages themselves. There are 3 screws. One on top and one in each corner. Removing these will allow the assembly to come free. There are 2 wire harnesses on the top. Unclip these and your guages are out. For more detailed info, see the DIY on installing indiglo guages.

Now lets remove the coin pocket/cruise control/moonroof control (on EX) gimmick. Pop the tray open and you will see that it is held in by a single screw:



Remove the screw and the whole assembly comes out. Unclip the wiring harnesses from the back and it's out. It's a good idea to take your change out ahead of time

MadDem13

The next step is to remove the radio/AC control panel from the middle of the dash. I don't have pics for this b/c you can find them in the DIY for replacing the Head Unit. The first thing to do is remove the panel that houses the Power outlet. Grab that sucker and pull, it is only held on by clips. Looking up from this opening, there are 2 screws that hold the radio assembly in from underneath. Take these out. Grab your trusty flathead and cloth and pry out the assembly, again being careful not to scratch or dent the dask. Pull out the panel and unclip all wiring harnesses... radio, antenna, hazard lights, AC controls, etc.

Now that the radio is out of the way, there should be some screws for you to remove. I believe there are three in the bottom, two on the sides, and one in the top between the AC vents. The next 2 are trcky. They are behind the dash and fac back twoard you. You will need a snakedriver or a very small phillips screwdriver (one of those short ones with the fat handle). There is a screw on each side like this:



This is the left-hand side. Don't be fooled. The screw you can see in the pic is not the one I am talking about. reach your hand in the opening and you will fell the screw that I am talking about.

Here is the right-hand side:



And by the way, that yellow clip in the pic is the one for the passenger airbag that you should have already removed...

MadDem13

Now lets look further down to the area where the power outlet was. here are also 2 screws to remove there:



Please disregard the wiring nightmare I had going on and look on the left and right edges. These are the 2 screws.

The next step is to remove the center console. Again I did not take pics b/c there is a detailed DIY for this on the site already. Check out that DIY and then come back to this one. (I didn't realize how long it was gonna take to post all of this).

You should now have something like this going on... except your guages are out and the combination switch is off of the steering wheel:

MadDem13

Now we can remove the pillar garnish... Grab your flathead and cloth and pry at the top, being careful not to damage your headliner:



Repeat the process on the passenger side (no pic, silly).

Finally (unless I forgot something) you can take out the dash. This is another good time to grab a friend. This part was a pain for me b/c I did not remove the combination switch and levers so I had to really work at getting the dash around them. Now that the dash is out, it looks like this:




Now you can do whatever you wanted to do with your dash outside of the car. You can probably guess that for me, it was painting the pad blue (the first time. The second time was switching it back to black, ha!) If you wanna remove the pad, take that puppy inside and flip it over. Remove all of the AC vents and the pad is held on by a number of screws. Remove 'em all and there you go.

MadDem13

You can pretty much reverse the order of the steps and get it all back in. Remember to save hooking the battery back up for last. I stayed as far away from the airbags as possible when starting up the car the first time

This DIY may look difficult, but it is more tedious than anything. This was one of the first things that I did to my car (after clearing the headlights). I wanted to do a silver and blue theme on the interior. It looked really great for the first year or so, but after a while, scratches appeared. It was hard to keep everything perfect and touching it up became a pain. Better prepping on the painting portion would have also helped. Just follow the DIY for painting interior pices if that is why you wanted your dash off. I also had an older post without pics that is floating around somewhere that described the painting in detail (no pics on that one).

I will get some pics up of what it used to look like. I liked the look, but it was just hard to maintain. Now it back to plain old black for me... I hope this DIY helped.

MadDem13

This is how it used to look:

Mjaymd

Where are the pics?