Was curious if a '98 Ram dash/instrument panel would swap into a "96. The firewalls and interior structures appear to be identical. The only problem I see is the passenger airbag and SRS module placement. Any thoughts?

 

go for it! let us know how it works out!

 

It would be illegal.

 

,

How?

 

Not only do you have to deal with the vin plate, but The air bag system is also a factor.

 

the vin plate, as long as you put your stock vin plate in the place of the old one. DONT USE THE OLD ONE! it should be fine, and as for the airbags, as long as you keep an airbag on that side, it should be fine. bt i would just sugest getting a carpet or molded piece to go over it. it would be alot easier

 

The VIN plate is attached to the body, not the dash

 

+1 with th vin attachment area!

 

The illegal part is swapping out the odometer. It is a federal offense to tamper with the odometer reading. The odometer reading is stored on a chip in the instrument cluster or on a roll gauge (depending on the year). So if you put a new instrument cluster, you will be putting in a new odometer value for your VIN. The trucks odometer will no longer represent the actual miles of the vehicle. If you try to sell it like that at a later time, you can be tried for odometer tampering. Like I said, that is a federal offense, and also has state law implications too.

If you never plan to sell it, then I guess there is no issue. If you do sell it, you will have to fully disclose what you have done with the odometer at the time you sell it (including tons of documentation you have to fill out to disclose what you did).

I researched this when I was looking at swapping out my gauge cluster for the one with a tach in it. You'll see why I have an aftermarket tach instead.

 

I was just talking about the dash itself, now I see he said panel too. So , Silver is right about that. But back to the dash, the vin tag is riveted to the dash! At least it is on my 98.