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Finish Removable Cowl
To wrap up the removable cowl mods, I needed to add mounting flanges at the sides.
In doing this, I decided to trim the panel to a point that would replace some warped areas around hole and dent patching I had done previously. (pics tipped sideways to show parts better)
Here's the cut, and the fitted patch panel / flange part:
After bench fitting the patch panel and flange, then it was final fitted on the rig. This made sure that the cowl matched up to both the firewall flange across the front, and the cowl supports on the sides:
One tacked, it was removed and then fully welded, and the welds rough finished. It was then mounted up again, clamped to the side supports, and then the mounting holes marked on the cowl side flanges using a transfer punch through the support mounting holes. Here's the flanges with mounting holes drilled - viewed from the underside of the cowl:
Here's the mostly finished cowl assembly, with one pic from under the dash area showing how the mounting flanges attach to the cowl side supports, and the second shows the finished flange area overall:
I'll be doing more trimming of dash side of the cowl assembly later on - after building the cage. The back ends of the cowl support tubes will be welded to the cage A pillars - where the temporary A pillar tubes are tacked currently. The dash panel will be attached between the A pillars. What currently looks like the dash panel on the cowl assembly will be cut back to make a 1" flange that will overlap the upper part of the dash- like the factory design but attaching to the dash panel with machine screws rather than spot welds.
Glad to be done with this part of the body. Took a lot longer than I expected...
To wrap up the removable cowl mods, I needed to add mounting flanges at the sides.
In doing this, I decided to trim the panel to a point that would replace some warped areas around hole and dent patching I had done previously. (pics tipped sideways to show parts better)
Here's the cut, and the fitted patch panel / flange part:
After bench fitting the patch panel and flange, then it was final fitted on the rig. This made sure that the cowl matched up to both the firewall flange across the front, and the cowl supports on the sides:
One tacked, it was removed and then fully welded, and the welds rough finished. It was then mounted up again, clamped to the side supports, and then the mounting holes marked on the cowl side flanges using a transfer punch through the support mounting holes. Here's the flanges with mounting holes drilled - viewed from the underside of the cowl:
Here's the mostly finished cowl assembly, with one pic from under the dash area showing how the mounting flanges attach to the cowl side supports, and the second shows the finished flange area overall:
I'll be doing more trimming of dash side of the cowl assembly later on - after building the cage. The back ends of the cowl support tubes will be welded to the cage A pillars - where the temporary A pillar tubes are tacked currently. The dash panel will be attached between the A pillars. What currently looks like the dash panel on the cowl assembly will be cut back to make a 1" flange that will overlap the upper part of the dash- like the factory design but attaching to the dash panel with machine screws rather than spot welds.
Glad to be done with this part of the body. Took a lot longer than I expected...