1962 to 1965 Mopar Cowl Repair

Kevin writes:

Hi B body owners,

The photos do not really give the work justice but the repair on my 1964 Dodge 440 worked really well. It only took one weekend.

I thought (as most folks do) that everyone else had cowl problems but not me. After I got the dash out of the car, it became very obvious that there was rust.

I took at 3 inch cutting disk and cut the cowl between the wiper pivot hole and the start of the slots. If you look from below, you can see the “hump” in the inner cowl piece about 4-6 inches from the wiper pivot. I cut the cowl over the hump. This meant that there was about 3/4 of an inch of space between the outer cowl and the inner at that location. Elsewhere it is more like 1.5 inches.

I cut the cowl along the front edge about 1/2 inch below the corner over to the area outside of the engine compartment (where the fender bolts to the engine compartment).

Once past the area that could be seen from inside the engine compartment, I sliced forward and down to the area that had spot welds. The spot welds were drilled out along the outside of the cowl and the outer piece came off.

To the left is a fuzzy picture from under the dash. The hump that I refer to is not visible in the photo and the rust is not too obvious either. The only indication that it is the underside is the wiper linkage. The rust is the brown fuzzy area close by the wiper pivot.

After cutting and welding the new pieces in (I used galvanized steel) I also added a “dam” between the hump and the outer cowl. I folded the steel dam like a C so that it could be welded to the lower cowl and also would provide a way of holding the outer cowl in place for welding. After welding the dam to the inner cowl, I put POR 15 on everything and then welded the outer cowl down.

Overall, it looks pretty good.

I drilled extra drain holes to help if anything gets past the dam or through the wiper pivot hole. I also enlarged the existing drain hole that you will see on the left side of your cowl.

After everything was done and the outer welded in place, I sprayed undercoating in the left cowl area through the enlarged drain hole.

Check the technical area of the 1962 to 1965 Mopar Web Site for someone [Tom Over, ed.] who took the cowl apart down the face of the firewall. That article and this explanation may help you.

Call me at 807-473-5798 and I’ll be glad to explain and help you if I can.

Thanks, Kevin!

Fighting the rust monster is important in these B Body Mopars.

Good job!

Gary H.

August 15, 2006

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