After grinding down the welds on the lower cowl and drilling out all the holes for the spot welds on the upper cowl I mocked everything up again, paying specific attention to where the upper cowl mates with the dash panel to form the base of the windshield frame. Some minor adjustments were necessary along that seam to bring the two pieces of metal flush and even.
With the dry fit complete I went ahead and sprayed all the flanges that the upper cowl would be welded to in rust encapsulator, then I flipped the upper cowl over and did the same to the matching flanges on that half.
To try and prevent the classic failure point at the base of the cowl hats I liberally coated each side in seam sealer.
Once the seam sealer was dry I taped off the flanges and sprayed the interior of both the lower and upper cowl with a couple primer coats of rust encapsulator, followed by a couple top coats of satin black on the lower cowl. Later I would learn that the paint on top of the seam sealer did not fully dry as quickly as the rest.
Came out looking pretty good! My intent was not perfection, just a decent face when you look down through the vents in the upper cowl.
After the paint had dried I clamped the upper cowl in place and the welding began.
With the upper cowl in place I got excited and decided to toss the fenders and hood on to double check that everything was still at least in the same ballpark.
The gaps were far from perfect but considering nothing was fully attached I thought it all looked fairly reasonable for the current stage of the project.
I mentioned that I later discovered that the paint over the seam sealer was drying more slowly, this came about when I looked in the cowl and found the seam sealer speckled with metal flakes from where I had ground off the paint on the mating surface for each of the spot welds. In the moment I was pretty disappointed to find this. I was able to make progress removing some of the metal flakes by using a toothbrush and an extendable air nozzle, eventually I got over it and chalked it up as a learning experience.
Another several hours of grinding later and the cowl was complete!
