The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Radio cutout

The cutouts for the radio knob shafts in my truck have been enlaged by a previous owner :mad: , I am assuming to accept a radio that wouldn't quite fit the stock holes. Could someone tell me the diameter if the stock holes and the distance, center to center between the holes? Oh yea, the truck is a 1951 Chevrolet 1/2 ton.

It may or may not be any big deal depending upon how much enlarged they are.

The '51 radio uses a teardrop shaped spacer on the dash which will cover the holes even if they are enlarged some. If they are way big, then they might be outside of the teardrop and visible.

How much did they change the original hole?

Well, the left hand hole isn't too bad, it has been elongated to the left about 1/16 of an inch, but too much of the origianal hole is gone to take a diameter measurement from. the right hand hole has been enlarged to the point that the small notch at the bottom of the hole is gone. Looks like it was done with a grinder or file, its rather ugly. I was thinking of welding metal back into the hole and recutting the hole to the proper size... what do you think?

I dug around in my photos, here is the only one I have of the dashboard, it only shows one of the holes, but it happens to be the worse of the two.


well, maybe not, apparently the server that I have the picture on will not let me link to it

Nevermind, I got it working now:
[img]http://aricv.0catch.com/images/Dashboard.jpg[/img]

Big . . . I laser burned a couple of 18GU plates to put behind your dash radio opening that have the correct hole locations. The idea was that if your dash was really butchered, you could spot weld one of these behind the dash and it would give you the right size opening and hole spacing for a decent way to mount a stock radio. You still have to patch any big butchering on the front side if the radio bezels don't cover. The first couple I made were not perfect, but I plan on modifying the drawing / program and burning a few more in the future.

I don't think that is a problem. There may be a little of that hole peeking out the right side under the teardrop spacer, but from what I can see the stock teardrop should cover it. If not, you could cut a small piece of sheetmetal and use it as "moulding" or trim to hide any of the hole that shows. I wouldn't think you'd have any problems with a stock radio setup from what I can see.

The plastic replacements for the originals are available from places like Jim Carter\'s and here's what the original pot metal maroon teardrops look like:
Original GMC Radio - Unrestored

Thanks for replys, I don't have te radio yet, but I should in a few weeks, guess I will find out then.

I had the PO cut two large round holes in the dash to mount gauges, I cut the holes square and used 18 guage steel and mig welded and leaded over to repair.

You can also weld in a radio area repair patch panel. These patch panels have been cut out of undisturbed dashes.
I have seen these advertised in the Swapmeet section

I got one of these "patches" from the swap meet and "cemented" it in and it worked great. Can't tell it from the front side however if you stick your head under my dash, "Mothertrucker" is emblazed in white paint----radio will hide it when I get it in.

Your gonna want to hide that stenciling Doctor Wise.