1966 Ford Mustang - Project '66 - Complete Cowl Repair Procedures for '65-'68 Mustangs

12 The new cowl hat patch is clamped into place with several pairs of locking pliers. From the underside of the dash, the patch panel is scribed for cutting. There is no need to install the complete, as-stamped patch (requiring removal and careful measuring of the wiper pivots) if the area has solid metal.

13-a To more easily see the scribe marks that were made, you can utilize a grease pencil, a crayon, or a marker to make the cut lines more visible.

13-b Cutting the extra metal off the patch can be accomplished with metal shears (as we are using here), a hacksaw, a reciprocating saw, a cutoff wheel, or other similar tool.

14 Though we plan to paint the complete underside of the dash with Eastwood's Corroless paint, Gaydos wanted to make sure our fresh, unprotected metal didn't begin to rust before we had a chance to paint it ourselves.

15 A few well-placed tack welds are made along the rearmost edge of the cowl patch to hold it in place against the cowl. This is performed to allow form-fitting the patch to the cowl.

16 With the rear lip of the cowl patch tacked in place, Gaydos uses a body hammer to tap the edge of the patch until it meets squarely with the original cowl metal. As the metal lines up, another small tack weld is made with the MIG welder until the patch is completely held in place by tack welds.

17 Now that the patch is securely held, all of the locking pliers can be removed and the patch completely butt-welded into place. Take your time, and make sure all gaps are completely welded, because any pinholes could pose as potential leak points.

18 Once your welding is complete, don't forget to clean up the welds with a grinding wheel. Grinding the welds cleans them for paint adhesion and allows you to inspect for thorough weld adhesion and penetration.

19 Our new cowl hat patch is just about complete on the driver side. Notice again how we avoided having to deal with the wiper pivot by cutting well below it. Of course, if your rust damage is higher up the cowl, you will have to cut accordingly.

20 Once the welds have cooled, a generous layer of rust-preventative paint is applied to the fresh repair area.

21 The final step to complete the cowl repair is to apply a high-quality seam sealer over the welds, around the spot weld of the hat assembly, and inside the hat at the spot weld seam. Simply brush on seam sealer wherever you think water intrusion could happen. Follow these same steps we just outlined for the passenger-side cowl, and you will have your cowl repaired in short order.

22 After removing the worst of the surface rust with a wire wheel, we used a POR-15 starter kit to further protect our cowl. POR-15 Metal Ready is used first to neutralize any remaining rust, then POR-15 black rust- preventative paint is brushed on to seal our cowl from any future rust problems.