Well... it was not nearly the easy project I thought it would be since the hole is on two different planes. I should have taken pictures as I went, but here is a recap.

Had to cut the hole out - my '08 was not made for anything bigger than a 5.



Next, I had to take a piece of sheet steel and fabricate my mounting plate. It took some massaging to get the angles, dimensions, and radius's right.






Here is what it looks like mocked up.







This is the final product... It came out pretty good after a lot of trial and error. I was wanting to try and reuse the hood that enclosed the HDS-5, but that was not an option. That being said, I had to relocate the trim and light switches to the glass. I used silicone to seal between the plate and the glass, but it makes it look like there is a big gap between there. There really isn't much of a gap (maybe 1/16-1/8 inch), just wanted to keep water out of there.







In this one you can see where I put the switches.



It was a lot of work getting it right, but getting the deck space back from my RAM mount was worth it!

That is sharp buddy!

Nice job! Sooo how much do you want for your Ram mount?

$23.5k

Lol it's on this boat.

http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/8659529#Post8659529

DAAAANGit! Lol. Ya did a good job. I'm sure the pucker factor was high cutting into the fiber glass.

great job for sure, be proud of it, takes a lot to start cutting on your boat, did it on my nitro way back when.

Yeah, funny enough, I used a hoof rasp to smooth it all out. My little file was taking forever so had to think outside the box.