A good amount of progress today, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for floor pans. Floor support is welded in and the driver side floor pan is fit and partially welded in. Just need to weld the perimeter of the pan then weld back in the lower half of the torque box and seat riser and floors will be done!
Floors are officially done! Lower half of the torque box is welded back in place and parking brake cable brackets are welded back on. Next I will be starting work on doing a patch on the passenger rear quarter panel behind the tire.
Looks good!!
Floors are now painted and got the rust cut out of the passenger rear quarter panel and patched up. Car is ready to take back to the house to pull the windshield and start on the cowl panel removal.
Nice work, metal work done. What’s your next move?
I’m going to trailer it back to my house, get it out of the weather and back into my garage but unfortunately the metal work isn’t quite done. Cowl vents have to be addressed so that’s the next step
Been a while since I’ve gotten my hands dirty with the car. I got it trailered back to my house out of the elements finally. Who can guess what fun I’m getting ready to have?!? Any words of wisdom from those who have repaired cowl panels before I dive into mine?
Got the cowl panel puled today to reveal the surprises underneath. Not as bad as I thought but also didn’t disappoint with the driver side vent rusted out. Looks like I just need the patch panel and not a full replacement.
So I was originally optimistic I could get away with just replacing the hat on the driver side, but 50 years of mother nature just took too much of a toll on the metal under it. So I got all of the rotten metal out around the cowl hat and got everything cut to match the original contours of the cowl. I’m guessing they don’t make an exact replacement for the cougar but the reproduction cowl corner I bought was not an exact match which is why I cut it the way I did. Ready to weld in at this point then will paint and seam seal everything to bulletproof it from water.
Cowl panel patch welded in and primed now with a coat of POR 15. Going to paint the lower cowl the final car color before I reattach the upper cowl panel.
Nice work.
Man that cowl work looks awesome.
Thanks, I’m learning as I go! First project car doing any kind of body work.
Lower Cowl Painted, going to coat the bottom side of the top half with POR15 before I weld it back on.
Took me a while, been finding other projects to get done around the house but the Cowl panel is finally welded on. Just need to get some grinding done and then back on with the rear fender apron extensions.
All the work you have done looks great. It gives me encouragement for my project that doesn’t need as much work as yours.
Thanks! All I can say is don’t be afraid to dive in, take your time to figure out how each panel is spot welded together and take your time drilling and separating panels especially if you can reuse some of those panels. In the end, the assembly of these cars is very simple and invest in a lot of clamps lol you can’t have enough clamps to keep it all tight.
The cowl panel is officially in the books! finished it off by grinding down all of the spot welds and capped off with the rear apron extensions. Whats worse than welding over 145 spot welds…grinding them down. I will say those 1/2" x 18" belt sanders are a life saver for this work. Next I’ll address a small rusted spot forming under the paint behind the left rear tire on the quarter panel. Then start stripping the car down for paint prep.
