cutting back of dash

Trailbeast, the way you did your wife's car was the way I was thinking about doing mine, so you soldered the gauge wire to the circuit board copper runners?
Thanks

Yep. for the gauges that needed it.
The gauge internal lights as well as every other light in that cluster uses the original copper traces to solder wires for the LED's to.

That way the OEM round socket still disconnects everything but the volt gauge (it is wired separately.) like to amp meter is in the original wiring.

The left side of the clusters behind the three gauges has the circuit board completely cut away and a 2x6 square cut out of the metal behind the gauges.