Easy on the old girl there guys!!! While I would love to pull the windshield and remove the whole cowl its just not gonna happen right now. My initial thoughts are to use por15 and fiberglass mat to at least seal it off and prevent further rust. Other than that I'm kind of at a loss but definitely open to ideas.
The drivers side, looks rusted right into the seam of the firewall...Where are you? I've had Canadian cars not rusted that bad.. I thought mine was bad, and this car came from Arkansas...
North Carolina. Wish mine looked like yours. Apparently who ever owned it years ago let it get clogged with pine needles and crap and never bothered to fix it.
I am just going to come out and say what I think many are thinking, "Pull the windshield!" It is not that tough and it will save you a ton of time by just doing the repair correctly. If you keep trying to find a short cut you might as well find another car that has a decent cowl.
Never pulled a windshield before so kind of worried about that and having to weld the cowl cover back on lol. My welding skills are definitely lacking. Are the factory welds easy to spot and drill? Can the windshield be pulled by yourself?
Pull the trim and us an utility knife and cut the rubber seal. The window should then be able to push out the front. It is actually one of the easiest things you can do on the car.
Do you mean to cut the seal with a utility knife all the way around or just cut it in one area? Will I need a new seal afterwards? Guess pushing it out from inside I'll have to recruit some help so I don't break it lol....... Hmmmm drilling 187 welds doesn't sound like a whole heck of a lot of fun lol.
I don't see much of an alternative with what I see lurking underneath the cowl cover - using any method other than replacing everything with new steel is going to be a crap shoot as to whether the repair is going to stay there or not - the main problem with using fiberglass is finding good material for it to stick to - after replacing my hats and a few sections with steel, I still had some pin holes to deal with but for that 2 good coats of POR 15 took care of it - I used a flashlight on every repair so could see if I was getting it all sealed in or not
I'm in the same boat. My car came out of NC also. And both drivers and passenger side is gone. I bought mustang cowl repair parts. Then ordered some 8mm spot weld bits. Which turned out to be just a little small. Going to pick up some 10mm bits this week. As for welding. Are you using gas or flux core? Everytime I used flux core I burned more holes than I fixed. I shifted to gas, lowest power setting, and slow on the feed. You have to basically do a ton of little spot welds, unless you have a TIG. I started on the floor pans so I could get a lot of practice with my welder before getting into the cowl. Good luck
There is a member right at this moment, cutting a rust-free cowl out of his parts car. I would contact him and see if it is worth your while to look into getting one from him. http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=97180 There are others here on the forum as well that specialize in parting these cars out so that the rest of us can have a chance at fixing ours. Craig hooked me up with MY cowl and I am glad I went that route. My repair method changed from making my own patches, to buying Mustang patches, to buying a cowl to use for pieces, to using the WHOLE donor cowl. I must say, I am glad I did. If I was even considering autocross like you are, I would definitely have that cowl fixed-up good and solid. With that much of your cowl missing, I would also be suspicious of the front floor pans and torque boxes. I used a 1-inch wide utility knife and laid the blade flat with the glas and cut all the way around the rubber. Once you do that, a newborn baby could push the glass out. I did mine by myself, but having a second set of arms to lift the glass over the car would be a good idea. There are tons of spotwelds and they're almost ALL 3/8", so that tells you how much stress that area has to deal with. Good luck, and if you have any other questions, etc feel free to PM me.:Handshake
I've gotten a lot of rust free southern body parts from Rick Brooks in Texas - maybe he can help you out
