Alright so I should have posted this a long time ago but I was so busy and didn't actually take any pictures at the time... but oh well.
You must be registered for see images attach
I completely installed my new dash! No more cracked dash or rattling pieces.
It took about 3 days each about 4-5 hours of working kind of lazily. While I was in there I cleaned up pretty much any wiring I could find and made it all tidy; redid connections and rerouted wires. Cleaned out the evap while I was in there too.
If anyone is planning on replacing their dash core then I would spend the time and look at anything behind the dash and make sure it's all 100%.
The job wasn't hard, it was pretty tedious. Removing the old one was easy because there was basically nothing left of it. Installing the new one was pretty easy too as long as you have an extra hand to get it in there and set down.
The only problems I ran into were that the dash I recieved was from a pre 92 truck so the hole for the gauge plug was smaller and I had to open it up with a dremel. I also put a piece of styrofoam to hold the plug up. Also there's two screws in the dash behind where the gauges mount to hold up a main wiring loom, they're a pain to get to so i broke them pulling it out and did not put them in when installing the new one.
And of course after doing all of this I determined I needed a new bezel piece so I had to replace that as well. So make sure that you thoroughly examine what all pieces you will need. I still need a fuse box cover and lower column piece but it's no bigee right now.
It's also amazing how discolored my interior was compared to a freshly spec painted piece.
I'm very impressed with it and it way better than a cracked up one.
Also for anyone wondering this is where I got all my pieces I ordered. This guy gets many different pieces every couple days. Pretty good prices. The dash core was $250 plus $65 ship, bezel was $45 plus $13 ship, and the speaker grilles were $20 plus $8 ship.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html/?_saslop=1&_sasl=tjsoff
Then, to top it off and protect the new dash I ordered a dash skin
https://dashskin.com/
Fits pretty good, You're supposed to glue it down but I have not got that far because I'm going to get my windshield tinted so I'm waiting till after that. I had to trim the very edges because they were hitting the A pillars.
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
Those are with the dash skin installed.