With the cowl removed I was able to see the rust damage that existed at the base of the A pillars and at several areas of the firewall, concentrated around the upper flanges that mate to the cowl. I started by focusing on the driver’s side A pillar and firewall.
The upper lip of the firewall/kick panel leads up into the base of the A pillar, so I traced the damage and cut it out to make more room for working at the base of the A pillar.
There are 3 layers of metal welded together at the base of the A pillar, in this case the rust had permeated them all so they all had to be cut out.
There was quite a bit of pitting on the far side of the driver’s firewall, underneath where the fresh air vent mounts and many holes in the cowl existed. I ended up deciding to cut it all out while I was in there.
I laid the removed pieces on top of the reproduction firewall so that I could trace them out and get a reasonable fit for the replacement patch panels from the start.
Somehow I ended up cutting the driver’s side firewall patch quite short so I ended up having to weld an extension on before installing it.
I used cardboard templates to help get the shape right for the A pillar patches.
Before welding in the top flange of the kick panel I sprayed rust encapsulator on the bare metal of the first layer at the base of the A pillar in an attempt to prevent the rust that cropped up the first time around.
With the paint dried I welded in the kick panel flange which makes up the second layer of the stack at the base of the A pillar.
The topmost piece at the base of the A pillar gave me significantly more issues than I was expecting. At least three different times I thought I had it dialed in before another test fit proved me incorrect. I don’t know if it was a matter of the new cowl being shaped slightly differently or what.
Multiple test fits with the new lower cowl showed unexpected interference with the topmost piece at the base of the A pillar so it was shaped, sliced, and welded several times before arriving at a workable state.
It’s not pretty but it’s functional and will be completely covered by the cowl. Good enough!
