Dash removal to repair defrost/heater cable

[Dubv1980]

I fear I've dug myself more of a hole than I was expecting today. With all our newfound spare time, I was finally getting around to repairing the defrost/heater cable that had snapped off years ago at the heater control levers. I'm stuck on attempting to remove the lower dash. I've taken all of the lower screws out. I'm reading that there are bolts that need to be accessed under the plastic parcel tray, but I can't figure out how to remove the tray. I see what look like plastic "rivets" along the back near the bulkhead. Whats the proper way to remove these?

How many of the bolts are there? I can feel something securing the dash very tightly right near the lower right hand side of the steering column (LHD truck).

Any assistance here would be wonderful as I'm kind of "stuck" for the evening.

Chris

[Dubv1980]

Well, I managed to get the lower dash off...plenty of rust back there. Anyone have any tips on replacements for the rivnuts/captured bolts that screw into the bulkhead...they just spun..had to pop them out. I've read this is a common issue. What have folks used as a solution for reinstalling?

[Myron]

I haven't done this exact repair (IIA owner here, so no lower dash unit) but I own a rivnut installation gun. It's super easy to use. If you could find or borrow one, could you just replace the old ones with one size bigger?

[Dubv1980]

I managed to find some masonry screw mounts and glued them into place...not a perfect solution but seems solid in there. If it falls apart, I'll get a rivnut gun and do it the right way! Good news is the defrost cable works great now.