Dash Pad Removal? How to do it?

[Lord Warlock]

Ok, this weekend we pulled the windshield out of the charger, and later this week i'll be pulling the rear window as well.   In the next couple months i'll be replacing the entire interior of the car with Legendary pieces, part of this is the dash pad.  After looking at the pad, i'm not seeing how it comes off.  Will i need to pull the cluster out to remove the pad, or is it attached to the upper dash from behind with screws/nuts.  Or is it screwed on from underneath (behind the trim plate somwhere) the front somewhere?

Regarding the upper dash piece (the part with the defrost vents in it, and the VIN tag affixed) does this piece come off?  The two side support braces go down under the dash, are they bolted to the side of the body from behind the dash, or does the brace go even lower to where the kick panels are? I'm not real sure i want to remove the entire dash assembly, what i'd like to do is loosen it some and move it backwards to allow access underneath it without actually taking the piece off.  I need to clean and inspect the wiring under the dash behind the cluster/ and AC/Heater core in order to remove old rat droppings from when they set up shop in the car during its 30 year storage.  The rats are long gone, but they left "traces" everywhere...found some along the edge of the headliner when i removed the side trim...thats gonna be a nasty mess to clean up when i replace the headliner.

lol, before this weekend, the car looked like i was making progress, but without the glass, it looks like 2 steps back to make 1 step forward.  But there was a couple small spots that need to be filled in the windshield channel.  Actually it was alot better than i thought it would be, the rear window channel is going to be a bit worse i'm afraid, not looking forward to the work involved there, guess its time to start learning how to weld. 

Lord Warlock

[694spdRT]

The dash pad has studs that go back into the metal frame with speed nuts. Here is a close up picture of a stud and a shot of my original pad compared to one of the floppy repos that I did not use.

[bill440rt]

Warlock,
The metal dash FRAME is all ONE-PIECE. There is no top & bottom. If you have the windshield out of the car, it might be easier to remove the whole dash as an assembly than trying to rebuild it in the car. If it needs painting, it will be better/easier to do it out of the car as well.
If you don't have a factory service manual, do yourself a favor & get one. It is invaluable in working on these cars, as simple as they are.

If you choose to leave the dash in the car, you'll pretty much have to strip it anyway to get the pad off. Drop the steering column, then remove the gauge cluster, radio & faceplate, glove box door & box, heater controls & map light (if you have one). You'll have a dash skeleton staring back at you.

Then, using a 1/4" ratchet, long extensions with swivels, wobble extensions, deep & shallow sockets, a drop light & flashlight, band-aids, & curse words (some of which I won't dare repeat here, I learned a few myself in the process), proceed to remove the dash pad by the "touch & feel" method.
Good Luck!

[purple70rt]

don't know if this will help, here is the middle 4 nuts from back, kind of give you some kind of place to look for the nuts, 694spdRT picture is better i think, but here it is, I have circled them.