Yeah I understand its not going to be ideal. My basic plan is to make a template the best I can out of cardboard. I have a friend bringing me some sheetmetal. I'm gonna flex and cut the sheet metal to try and make it fit to the original shape the best I can. I'm going to screw it in place with about two screws and then spot weld all the way around it to the best of my ability.... I'm not a fabricator at all. I can weld but I would not say that body work, metal working, or welding on sheet metal is my thing at all. But at the end of the day it will have new metal in place that will be welded ( although like I said previously ) not welded in water tight. I don't think there is anyway I could ever run a good enough bead on such thin material to think the weld itself would be water tight. I'm gonna buy two cans of that eastwood frame sealer and jam that down in the cowl and let her rip. Hopefully what I don't seal with weld the sealer will creep down and get on everything and seal it all up so I don't have two 5" x 5" holes under my dash for water to run in anymore. I will take some pictures in the daylight in the next few days so you guys can see the carnage of the rust. It's basically rusted from the top hat all the way to where the bottom cowl piece would mate with the outside drain port deal. Thanks for all the info and helpful tips guys. Pictures to come shortly.
Just keep in mind that the Eastwood spray green frame encapsulator is watery thin and it won't be filling up gaps like a good brushable seam sealer will. When I've used it, I've had to put a piece of cardboard under the car to ptotect the garage floor from the drips until it sets up
you have good intentions but...it will still leak... you are not cutting out the rust so it will continue to rust out and leak. this is one area that if not able to be repaired correctly...get another body...JMO
The pictures will help explain more than I can in my own words. The bottom cowl is basically gone on the extreme ends of where it would be. The part towards the center of the car with a few inches of rot in it will be cut and replaced with new metal. I'm essentially going to cut back to get rid of the rusted area and have good metal. From that point outwards I will be putting in new sheet metal. The issue for me is where the bottom cowl piece originally fits the fender or whatever that part of the car would be referred to.
The more I read the more I'm considering cutting the top of the cowl off and repairing it from the top lol. This car will never be a show car. At the end of the day its an autocross street car thats flat black. For structural purposes I guess its just more simple to cut a huge square hole in the top and throw new sheet metal in from the top and weld it all up and not try and mess with it from the bottom side and hope it works. I'll just have to weld back my squares and grind down the welds and hope I can smooth it all out with filler so it doesn't look like do do lol. Time to bust out my cut of wheel I suppose.
Odd question but what gauge sheet metal should I use? Is it OK to user a fairly thin sheet so its easier to form and flex to the contours?
If you autocross the car or expect it to have any structural inegrity, by all means, please weld in some good metal and tie that front area back together. Often, the less we can see of something (especially in cars) the more structural it is. I think you're making the right decision to weld patches in there. It is still a challenging area to work with, even withthe whole top cut off the cowl and out of the way. There are a lot of compound curves and not a lot of meat to tie-into. Either way, it will be a time-consuming process to fix. I would rather drill all the spot welds out than to cut up the cowl cover. I would say that the factory sheet metal isn't any heavier than 18ga. On its own, it's pretty flimsy stuff, but with the right amount of beads and bends in it, it can be made quite strong. When I was looking for MY lower cowl panel, there were a few members here that had or were willing to cut out good panels from parts cars they had. I ended-up going with a whole lower cowl replacement. If money is of no concern, they do reproduce the whole lower cowl for these cars, but it is in Brazil and would have cost me well over $1000 US to get one home. MY cowl repair with pictures (still in progress): http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=92251
Your cowl looks way better off than mine. I'm going to have to take some time to really look at the cowl hard and see what my best approach would be. I don't plan on it ever being functional again so I won't be putting the stove pipe in so it might be easier for me cut most of what's there and add sheet metal and weld it up. Not quite sure yet but either way from the top or bottom I will be putting metal back in. 1000.00 is crazy for that.....I could have the cowl professionally repaired for half of that.... and my whole roller cost that so I couldn't justify that to fix the cowl lol.
Good luck with that!!! I honestly would love to see the cowl repaired by a professional for $500.00. I hate to tell you how many spot welds there are just to get the upper off to start the repair. I am not trying to be an @$$ but I just trying to be honest.
I'm not saying anyone could I'm saying I could lol. Helps when you have several fabricators that you know that all owe you favors. All I was trying to say is that 1k for a section of sheet metal is crazy. you could get another maverick roller for that much money lol.
Ok guys so I got the fenders off and cut the outside box end of the cowl area off. I have plenty of room to work with. The driver side is not as bad as the passenger side but does have quite a large hole still. I put a piece of sheet metal in and attempted to weld it with my wire feed welder on the lowest setting and cant keep the old metal from burning through. Not sure which direction to go with at this point...... I have fiberglass and a pint of POR15. I've seen some places where people use fiberglass mat and soak it with POR and apply it like they would fiberglass resin. At this point I don't think new metal is an option for me and I would just like to seal it up so no more water leaks in the car. I do plan on "creating" some support for that area of the car since it will be weaker without the sheet metal. Anyone have any tips or ideas about using the POR or fiberglass??? Thanks
