The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Cowl and floor repair

Hi all,
Can a rotted inner cowl (kick panel) be replaced without removing the outer and "inner/outer" cowl pieces? Or is it always the whole can of worms?

Also, should I work on cowl with the doors on or removed? Bracing?

Trying to save original metal...

I would take the door off just so there is no excess weight on that pillar, then replace only the kick panel. I wouldn't brace anything for just that. If you are careful you can make it look just like new. Be careful with that metal strip that holds the rubber in place.

"You can't tell what's in the pickle barrel til you get the lid offen it."
You may find some significant rust on the inner/outer panel, but don't just jump in to change that out. The replacement inner/outer panels are poorly designed and don't fit. Just cut out the rusted portions and replace with the correct gauge sheet metal, then weld in your new inner panel.
Carl

Thanks. So the kick panel can just slide into place if all the spot welds are cut?

Looks like the floor needs patching too - guess that has to happen first.

Not really. There is no sliding anything in place with the aftermarket patch panels. What I do is see just how much of the replacement panel I need and how successful I am at getting all of the spotwelds, etc loose. If you really take your time it could be easy to just replace it, but somehow I always run into problems that require some cutting of the replacement panel.

Do one at a time, or go ahead and put an X in the doorway with some 1" tubing or something. It's not hard to tack it in. Be strategic how you do it so you can get in there to weld! I am not sure how others feel, but putting the floor panel in first is probably a better way to go. That way the under floor support is preserved. You never know what you are going to find behind things. I ended up on one project having to remove everything below the floor and reconstruct it all.

Great Advice, thanks.
Anybody used the Jim Carter floorboard panels? Trying to save my original toeboard, and Jim Carter's are the only floor panel without attached toeboard section. Do they have the flange in front to join to toeboard?

So have to save the existing door gasket track?

Yes. Save that whatever you do. I haven't found any replacements for that. I salvaged a few small pieces to replace the bottom part on mine. Maybe that has changed? Someone will chime in if they know of a source. I used Jims panels on my truck. They are fine. If you take it real slow and really look at the structure under the floor, those braces are spot welded to the floorboard. By finding and removing the spot welds, you can leave it in place and maybe save yourself some grief. They do have the flange in front.

There WILL be fitment issues but that is true for all patch panels. In my case, I had about 1/32 too much material on the door edge so it was hard to rebend or cut and reshape the door end properly. My suggestion is to do what I didnt do, and deal with the excess on the trans cover edge. Another really smart thing to do is measure EXACTLY where the bolt hole is for the cab mount, where the screws are on the trans cover, etc and measure from someplace that is repeatable once the floor is gone. It needs to be put back exactly where you found it. I would screw the trans cover on before welding and see where you are. There may be some head scratching, but it will be a fun project!

I have not found the full sized inner panel with the correct bends at the bottom from any vendor. Not even close!
I have found that many of their half panels (lower half) fit perfectly. Somebody explain to me how that happens!
As far as replacement of the inner panel, the lower flange of it is sandwiched between the floor board flange and the rocker panel flange.
This makes it impossible to replace the inner panel as Chevrolet made it, without removing the floor panel.
You can however, cut the lower flange off and weld the inner panel to the floor board.
Carl

Great advice again, thanks.
Seems only Jim Carter sells the separate floor section. The other vendors sell a one-piece panel of floor with partial toeboard, joined with a bend instead of the original spot welded flanges. Oversize shipping on those too.

The curved section on the bottom of the complete inner cowl panel does seem too narrow in front. Would flattening and rebending the flange work? Or better to use the short panels?

Not sure if this is correct or not...

inner cowl panel installed

but this is what I did...

on the passenger side I built my own....

shown here

hope this helps you out...

MikeC

Your over thinking this, If its just the inner kick panel then no bracing is needed , That panel ads no structural support to the door, You don't need bracing for the out either and I would leave the door on for the outer so you get a good gap.

If you do hinge pillars then yes brace it. Otherwise its just a big PIA to get around. try to remove the weather strip channel intact if possible and cut out whats bad in the panel. treat the inside of the cowl with rust inhibitor. Usually if the kick is rotted then the wheel house is as well. I've done many many cab reconstructions and don't brace for those panels

Something like this needs bracing
http://www.thehollisterroadcompany.com/media/Owencab/42215/owencab%20002.JPG

If your referring to the inner kick ..then yes
Plan on having to rework the patch panel

I had to work the lower curve to make it work. Remember the rolled beads line up with the ones on the door

..pic...
...pic...

...pic...

The inner to outer replacement patch was useless. Had to cut that up to make it work

Glad you asked!
I beat, cut, cussed, beat some more on one of the poorly formed full replacement panels to make it fit (never again). Then I discovered that the short panel was a great fit. For the other side I cut off the bottom half of the full panel and welded the lower half-panel to it. It fit like a glove with no beating!
Carl

Mike, what you did was the best plan for your situation since your floor boards need no work. Nice work! The pics look rough, but I'll bet it cleaned right up after some grinding.
Carl

Follow up question - does the inner cowl need to be plug welded to the inner-to-outer cowl? I got my inner cowls in solid with door pillar and kick panel now, but there is a 1/4" gap between the inner cowl and the inner-to-outer cowl. Are plug welds needed for strength or can I leave and fill the gap?

Kind of an ancient thread, but my opinion is that you should weld the inner cowl to the inner-to-outer cowl. It provides some strength to connect the outer cowl to the floor and toe panel, and keeps road crud from getting in the gap (although you could fill that with sealer). The inner-to-outer is infamous for not fitting correctly. What I did was modify it so that it fit better and I could weld everything together.

You could put a few chunks of metal in there to connect the two and then use sealer to fill the gap. It'd probably work OK.

Thanks. Zombie thread brought back to life.
The manual says there were 16 spot welds there, so maybe it matters for integrity. I thought of trying to pull things together with temporary 1/4" bolts, then remove and plug weld one by one. Just hate to drill into the nice new inner cowl. I hadn't thought of using spacers and filling the gap later. It's not as if the original factory join sealed the cowl area from rust anyway!

That's very true. Of course, my original inner to outer cowl pieces were nearly nonexistent, and any sealer wouldn't have had anything to hold on to.

Here's a pic of the driver's side when I got it.

Kevin, I thought mine was the worst I'd seen ....but you got me beat.

Keep up the good work your doing. Love following your post.

Yeah, that was pretty ugly, and the passenger side wasn't much better.

Thanks for the comments.