Three observations and 1 question for those following this thread. We am fitting the driver side, side cowl. The inner kick panel is positioned well enough with the one FAM spec being met to FOD but not to 0-line(I trust my eye on this one). The outer side cowl panel is positioned to meet specs in terms of fender hole distances from FOD and 0-line. That leaves the "middle piece" which the FAM calls "cowl side inner panel". We are struggling with getting this piece to fit in a number of ways. 1. see first 2 pictures. The original piece had a "notch" at the top of where the piece contacted both the bottom of the kick panel and the side of the floor (I can NEVER remember the term used for "the side of the floor"). The replacement part does not have that notch. 2. see next 4 pics. We cut the "middle piece" above the third indentation, since it was obvious that the "curve" of the middle piece did not match the curve of the outer cowl piece and something had to give. We chose to cut above the top indentation, hoping we could align the 3 indentations on the middle piece with the 3 "bumps" on the inner cowl piece (the kick panel). 3. see next 3 pics. At the very front of the side cowls, where you can view the combination of outer cowl piece and this "middle piece", the original metal has a sharper angle than the replacement metal.
So we are going to create that notch referred to in observation 1, in the replacement piece. That will bring the middle piece closer to the kick panel from the bottom of the middle piece to where it hits the bottom of the kick panel and the "top of the side of the floor". We will use the slice we put in the middle piece to adjust the curve of the middle piece to eventually match the curve of the outer cowl piece (which mates to my fender holes quite well). Even with playing with the slice to adjust the curve, we are still struggling to get all 3 indentations to overlap the 3 bumps in the inner kick panel.
So here comes the question: It sure looks like we need to narrow this inner piece from east to west (horizontally) in order to fit it into the space between the inner and outer cowl pieces in order to not distort the outer cowl piece by making it bulge out too much. Anybody been there before? Can you give me some wisdom so that I don't have to order a third "middle piece"? (yes, I have 2 middle pieces now, from 2 different vendors) Thanks
