What is the best way to go about notching my dash pad for the A-Pillar bars that go through my dash. I was going to make a cardboard template and then transpose that to the dash pad. But the actual cutting of the pad is my concern. Should I use a hole saw, tin snips, die grinder or somthing else? Do I cut at an angle or straight up and down? I only want to do this once so I would like as much info as possible. Any pictures would be helpful.

 

I saw a few posts of this and it is not pretty, I don't think you will ever get a clean cut to where it looks stock Try a search and you will see what I am talking about, maybe you could fill in the cuts to make it look better

 

I don`t have pictures yet but I can take them this weekend, I just cut my mint pad for the A pillar bars, best way to cut it is with a jig saw and a fine tooth metal blade. you can angle the blade so when it cuts it recess the foam back from the plastic edge. Mine cut real nice and smooth..there are metal reinforcements in there that`s why the jig saw. To be perfectly honest I tried using reference points to measure and create a template but everything is curved and arched and there are no solid points to measure from that are completely exact. I installed the lower dash, sat the pad on top of it and slid it up to the bars. with a straight edge and some chalk I ran two lines straight from the pillar bars to the cowl edge of the pad and all the way to the cabin side edge, then by using the cabin edge attachment screw hole closest to the lines I marked a line to where the depth of the cuts needed to be. Once this was layed out I took the pad back out and made the in board cuts up to the point where the cut rounded the a pillar bar, after making the turn around the A pillar bar, I went with the cut off to the side at a 45 degree angle so that the only cut you see is the inboard one. Suffice to say it is a cut dash pad but from the window or even the drivers seat it is completely unnoticeable. Good luck do a search just had a thread open for that reason and one of the members posted his pictures.

 

WOW! Thanks for the detail. Any pictures would be appreciated.

 

I use a dremel to cut anything in a nice fashion. They make cutting discs up to 1.5", have to buy a different attachment for those big discs though. I've never cut a thirdgen dashpad though.

 

good point. Accuracy is always a good thing.