The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop inner cowl fitment, 1953 half ton

I finally have a driver side floor installed, that is acceptable to me. I'm now confused about the inner cowl panel though. My reproduction cowl panel has the curve at the bottom, that doesn't appear to come very close to mating up with the curve on the door pillar at the rear of the cowl, nor the floor at the front bottom of the cowl panel. It also seems to me that the cowl panel needs to have a bend at the bottom, about the same as the bend in the rocker panel rocker panel, but the bend would have to be at the bottom of the cowl, where the flange is broken. With the break there, I don't see any way to make that bend. Is this a common issue with these, or is it just me? I haven't yet removed the windlace track at the rear of the cowl panel. That should help slightly at the rear. But the front will still leave a gap between the cowl and the floor. I'm a little hesitant to start cutting on my new floor panel, but I think that it needs some metal ground off at the rounded corner hanging down near the front of the cowl. Should the cowl panel curve at the front butt up against the floor, or is it common to have to add some filler metal at that spot. I hope that my ramblings are clear enough for you to make sense of it. Thanks

Mike, It's not just you.

I don't think ANY of the available inner cowl panels really fit correctly. You're going to have to beat it into submission to match the inner-outer cowl and the floor. It might even be easier to cut the bottom loose from the inner cowl panel to be able to form it to the correct shape. I managed to make mine fit, but it wasn't fun.

The flange on the inner cowl should be alongside the floor panel flange that bends over the rocker panel. The FAM calls for a couple of welds along that joint on the inside.

Browse through some of the pics (link in my signature). I took some photos of the process I went thru.

Thanks, I looked at your pics. You obviously got your's to fit eventually. I'm assuming that the front angled edge that welds to the flange on the floor, is probably correct, as is the rear vertical edge that welds to the door frame. Thanks for the reply and the pics. It helps to know that other people have faced the same issues and solved them.

Look for the short lower half panel in black primer. They are made correctly. You can see from the pictures online or in catalogs that they are. It seems that none of the full panels sold are bent anywhere near correct.
If you need the full panel, cut the lower half off of the full panel and weld the correctly bent lower panel to it.
This tip will add ten years to the end of your life. You will need to start taking better care of yourself because the last ten years of ones life are seldom pretty otherwise.

Carl's advice is good. I didn't go that route because I was already well into getting the full panel reformed and didn't want another weld joint to deal with. I actually bought the short bottom halves, but decided not to use them. They went to another 'bolter who needed them.

...I think we decided about 20 years ago that you have to "beat these panels into submission".
....I bought the inner, inner to outer, and the outer panels from the same vendor when I did my 52 panel and they didn't even match to each other!!!!! Nothing new here.
I offered a NICE original to the vendor to try get them correct and they refused my offer. Nothing new there either,
just beat it into submission!

Thank you all very much for the replies and help. I'm not looking forward to this, but at least I know how to proceed now.

I used the shorter black piece, and welded it to the longer cowl panel, as Carl described. Saved me a few grey hairs, and much nice fit... I have photos somewhere of the process, Mike

Thanks to all of you who replied. I got the short bottom inner cowl pieces as Carl recommended. They fit at the bottom much better. I used the upper portion of the full panels that I had, to go along with them. I don't think that I would have ever gotten the full panels installed right.

It really irks me that we have to buy 2 panels, and cut and weld them together to make one good part which fits.
Just what will it take to get it through to the parts manufacture to make the full panel just like the half panel at the bottom? Is this the vendor's fault? Every last one of them sell the awful fitting full panels and many, if not all of them sell the correct fitting half panels.