The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Cowl Repair Advice?

I'm working on the passenger side cowl with replacement panels and am having some issues with fit (no surprise there, as many have said that would be the case.

The attached photos show what I'm up against.

With the inner cowl panel mostly in position and matching the curve of the A-pillar, it needs to have more curvature to meet up with the inner-to-outer cowl piece. I think I can straighten the flange at the bottom of the inner cowl panel and get it worked around to match, and run a weld bead between the floor (when I get that in place) and the inner cowl. Apparently the flange is intended to extend down alongside the rocker and floor where it bends over the rocker, but the was no evidence of three layers there when I removed the rusty stuff.

Another issue is the fit of the inner-to-outer to the beads on the inner panel. The top bead doesn't match up with the wide notch in the inner-to-outer. Also, with the inner-to-outer as close as I can get it to position, those notches aren't even horizontal (not a big deal as they'll be mostly invisible.) The beads on the inner seemed to match with the position of the original fairly well. This inner-to-outer is notorious for not fitting correctly. The curvature seems wrong as well, as with it clamped to the match the bottom with the rocker, it's too high to fit the outer cowl depression for the hood. I can whack some off and reweld that. Maybe completely cutting the inner flange off and pivoting it back at the top would fix the notches. I'll definitely need to fix the height issue. A specific question is should the inner-to-outer line up with the front of the rocker?

Surprisingly, the outer cowl panel seems to fit fairly well.

Any thoughts on the order to weld in the panels? Of course, the inner-to-outer should go in last. Any other suggestions are welcome.

Thanks

Take a look at woodys site. Might pick up a few good tips from his pics and comments

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I did a small repair only on drivers side, not as involved as what your doing, other will be along with some help. I ended up using some original pieces to get to contour right.

On the beads keep in mind that the beads line up with the beads in door so your have to navigate that also
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Good luck

I did my outer with inner to outer. I still have yet to do the inner or kick panels. http://www.bunchobikes.com/1952suburban19.htm The way I would do it is make the outer fit first. Curves correct, door gaps correct, hood gap correct. Then worry about the inner to outer so you have that back and bottom fender support. Then fit the inner. Some of the mess with the inner can be covered my the mat or rug. All depends on if you are doing a 10 point restoration, a regular car show vehicle, or a daily driver. Personally, I don't care about the inner because I have covered mine with ABS panels. Held in by the windlace and one screw. It even captures and holds my rug in place. Doesn't look like I took any pictures of them, though.

Mark's comment about making the outer cowl right first is spot on.
You should consider the aftermarket inner-to-outer cowl as a pricey assembly of random sheet metal. Do not hesitate to cut it in several places, removing metal from some places and adding metal to other places until it fits the inside of the outer cowl.
Then see what you need to do to the inner-to-outer cowl to make it fit the inner cowl.
While doing all of this, I attach everything with little self-tapping hex head screws so that I can take it all apart so that I can weld the inner-to-outer cowl back together. Then you can weld the whole works into place once everything fits.

Thanks guys.
I recall looking thru Woody's photos probably 2 years ago. It looks like he had the same issues as I do on the fit of the inner to inner-to-outer.
My plan was to leave the upper part of the outer cowl in place, including the louver and butt weld the lower section to the upper. I may reconsider that plan, though. I also planned on leaving the heater opening in place as well, and have already committed to that. The issue with butt welding the outer cowl would be to get a good joint and be able to planish it. I think I'll put the floor in first, which will also dictate the curve of the inner cowl panel toward the front.
I'll be sure to post up more pics as I go.

Dads50, I cut the inner cowl panel so that the top bead was in the same position as the original, so they should line up with the doors. I though you were talking about the beltline bead, till I looked at your pictures.

Same as everyone else I had no luck getting the inner to outer to ...fit up....

So I ended up combining some of the old with the Repair patch

If you don't have any original parts left over don't be afraid to cut up your repair part and re fit them as suggested above.

I had to pound/hammer out the lower inner repair patch to get the lower countour correct.
It was so long ago but I believe I used heavy construction paper to make a template.


Here is a nos inner repair Patch as you can see the lower contour has more slope than the reproduction

Cutting wheels and easy grind welding rod are your friend
Fit up fenders before final weld, and looks like you have door pockets to do also.


Here a link to my small repair, not as involved as what your tackling
...link...

If or when I do the passenger side Im going to cut out as little as possible, try to keep as much original metal I can

Unfortunately, I don't have enough original metal from the inner-to-outer panel to be worthwhile. There was just the back section of the passenger side, with the flanges completely gone. I looked for it in the snow where the chassis is, but couldn't find it a while ago. Maybe I'll intensify the hunt for it. The driver's side was completely gone, as indicated by the cowl flange also being gone in the pictures above.

The repop inner panel came with too much curve at the rear bottom and not enough higher up. I needed to massage that end to get it to match the A-pillar. I think I have enough metal on it to flatten the flange and use that to make up the curve to match the inner-to outer. Might have to splice some metal in. It sure would be nice if they made the inner panels with the correct contours.

Door pockets are good. A little surface rust. I already did the lower section of the A and B pillars, but kept the hinge pockets intact.

It's going to be a little difficult to match the front fenders to the body, as everything is apart. I guess I can hold the fenders up against the cowl to check for fit.

Looks like I have another fitment issue. I bought the floor patch panels that include the toe board, but it looks like I'll need to cut the toe board apart and splice in a piece at the junction.
In the photo below, notice that while the reinforcing beads line up OK, the floor isn't down all the way on the outer edge. I have the transmission opening at the right spot and lined up on that end, but when I fit it in to the floor at the rocker, the vertical bead was misaligned by about 1/2 it's width. The horizontal beads seem to be close to parallel but it's hard to tell as they aren't as well defined on the repop panel as the original beads. Pivoting the toe board section up at the outside will line up the vertical bead better, but that may put the flange on the outer edge of the toe board section too high. I wonder if the separate floor patch and toe board patches are any better.
Browsing around, I see that Classic Parts has inner cowl panels that look a lot more like the originals than the ones I bought from Jim Carter. Their pictures show the flanges that go on the firewall as well as the top flange and hole for the hood hinge bolt. Maybe they would have fit better. Just mentioning that for the guys who may not have gotten to theirs yet.
In my case, it's just more time and weld wire.

That's why I started thinking, a while ago, that I would make my own panels. The last patches I got were for the Suburban rear corners. They were made by the Wheelwright. They were spot on.

You will find that some vendors offer a half panel for the lower inner cowl. It is primed in black. It is bent at the bottom to fit these trucks perfectly.
These same vendors also sell a full inner cowl panel in gray primer, which does not come anywhere near to fitting at the bottom.
When I need to replace the entire inner cowl, I buy both of these panel, cut off the lower half of the gray ill-fitting full panel and throw the lower half as far as I can, and then weld the perfect fitting black half-panel to the remainder of the full panel.
You can thank me later.
Carl

Carl, I did see those. I may go for the lower half patch on the inner cowl panel, but we'll see if I can beat the full panel into submission first.

Every one needs to do that miserable job I suppose. I can tell you this, I will never do that again. I believe that the hours which I spent on that awful panel will be subtracted from the end of my life. The upper half is correct.The bottom half is just a horribly conjured up evil, bad prank which is not funny.

How is the outer cowl attached to the A pillar and what is the best way to remove it?

The best way to assess the panel attachments is to look at the drawings in the FAM, they show spot weld locations/number and any supplemental arc or gas welds.

If you sand off the paint along where the spotwelds are located, paint will remain in the divots caused by the spotwelder. I use a 3/16" or a 1/4" drill bit and carefully drill through the cowl panel without going all the way through the panel underneath. Good spotweld cutters are expensive, but they work. Cheap spotweld cutters have frustrated me, which led me to the drill bit method.

The trick with the spotweld cutters is to use a center punch (but the sharper one that the censor won't let me type) in the center of the weld for the pilot to ride in. The downside of the hole-saw style spotweld cutters is you have to go back and remove the center part of the outer panel spotweld.
Like Brad said, consult the FAM for locations, but unless you have a full set of spotwelder tongs that will reach in that far, you'll need to use plug welds instead of spot welds to put it back in place.

Yeah, but it leaves you really nice shiny spots to weld to!

That's very true. LOL
Not a giant deal to grind off the remainder.

Thanks for the info. I purchased a '55 1st series 3100 that has all of the problems everyone else seems to have. I am in the home building business and know a little more than nothing about what you guys do. I am learning a lot from this site but still finding my way around.. I'll try to figure out how to post some pictures.

Click on my photos link in my signature to follow along with my progress. If you have questions, feel free to ask,

Posting photos is covered in the link on the left side of every forum page. Pretty easy to do.

Nice work. That cab rotisserie is awesome. Laying on your back welding is no fun. Also the cab lifter offer thing is pretty cool. Gonna have to use that idea to put my cab back on. Beats using the the bucket on the skid steer.

Thanks
I learned about the cab lifter offer thing from another member here on Stovebolt. Just drill a hole in a 2x6 and run the bolt on the end of the engine lift arm thru it.

Got the inner cowl panel beat into submission today. I had bought the lower kick panel patches, but opted not to use it on this side. Welded on the tab that goes in front of the firewall and shaped the lower front to match the floor patch panel. Still need to reform the inner-to-outer cowl piece, then start working on trimming and fitting the outer cowl panel. I plan on getting everything trimmed before welding anything in place. Using self-drilling screws to hold things in place temporarily.
Here's a couple pix of the inner panel partially in place.

I hope you didn't wear your hammer out beating on the awful fitting full cowl panel.
I guess everyone needs to do that job one time. Builds character.

The lower section actually wasn't a much better fit, and I'd have had to splice the two together.
It wasn't actually that bad once I got into it. The hammer still works.
I may use the lower section on the driver's side.

Good job Kevin. I know it's a struggle to get the fit. Your approach is a good lesson for all who have aftermarket patch panels. You have lots of surrounding panels to puzzle together. Hard work. But fun in the end, and great experience for the next time. Keep the pics coming.

Can you post a few pics of the half panel that you from a few angles? I want to see if they are still stamping them out correctly like they used to.

I’ll share with you a mistake I made on the drivers side rocker panel’


When you get to the drivers side Its a good ideal to bolt up the parking brake bracket to target the three holes at the front for the rocker panel


My repair was minimal compared to what you have going on.

Thanks for posting your progress

Got that covered. Will definitely put the bracket in place to line up the rocker. Thanks for the reminder. Unfortunately the FAM has no info on locating the rocker front to back. I used the existing weather strip hold-down holes on the passenger side to locate the rocker there. Unfortunately the driver's side floor is completely gone, so no holes to index to.

Carl,
Here's some photos of the full and shorty kick panel for the driver's side. The shape is pretty close, although the full panel doesn't have the kickdown at the front and it's a bit longer at the bottom. Also a photo of the tags for the shorty kick panel and the short inner-to-outer cowl piece. Also a shot of the shorty kick panel clamped to the shorty inner-to-outer piece. I didn't use that inner-to-outer on the right side because I didn't like the shape on the outer portion where the outer cowl needs to go. I suppose I could have massaged it, but opted to go with the full inner-to-outer piece since I would have had to splice those two pieces together if I used the short piece.

While I'm here, here's a shot of the floor panel tacked into place.
Also a shot of the reinforcing piece at the tranny panel clamped in place just to check for fit.

Thanks
The saving grace is that metal moves fairly easily with the right approach.

Kevin,
Thank you for the pictures of your half panels. You are right. Those are not made correctly.
Where did you buy them? Someone does make the lowers with nearly perfect bends at to bottom. Its worth trying to find them, at least for the next guy down the road facing this job.

I bought these thru CarID, but they were shipped from AutoMetal Direct. However, I think that the fact that they're TriPlus brand is the critical thing. They also listed Goodmark, which looks identical to the TriPlus brand. I saw Dynacorn brand full kick panels and they looked like they had the right shape at top and bottom (at least they had the tab that bends over the firewall near the top.

Today I got the floor panel welded in. After tacking it in place, I discovered that I didn't have it level across to the tranny cover, so cut a slice in it to bring it up. While finishing up the welds, I discovered I had part of the existing foot panel that was too thin, so the next effort is to cut that out and patch it. I attempted to weld the thin spots, but the holes just kept getting bigger.
I did get the tranny cover support angle welded in. I added a little fin to help stiffen things up, as the floor patch panels didn't have the pinch weld like the original floor to foot panel joint.
Here's a couple pics of the project.

Here's a couple more pics of the driver's side shorty inner cowl panel next to the floor panel. It really isn't any better than the full cowl panel I got and used on the passenger side. So I think I'm going to proceed with beating the crap out of the full one to make it fit. Just about ready to put the driver's side floor in, but want to hold off on that till I get the inner cowl modified to fit. Also got the seat riser rail mount on the driver's side patched up today. After 4+ hrs of weld grinding and misc trimming and patching, I'm calling it a day. I'll tackle the inner cowl another day.