my 71 maverick was a kentucky car and unfortunatly, has some rust. ok..more rust than others i have seen i fiberglassed over the cowl because when it rains, all the water would pour onto the fuse box makign driving, let alone starting the car next to impossible. the cowl looks to be part of the body and i dont want to cut it off to fix. there should be lips on the duct holes, (to keep water out). these are completly gone. other that taking the dash out completly and removing the cowl...... what are my options? is there a kit that can be used to install a "lip" so that the water will drain out the sides into the fenders ?? any help would be appreciated... thanks
http://mmb.maverick.to/showthread.php?t=7906&highlight=cowl+repair Look at this post(hope this works). Has alot of good info for repairing the cowl. Tomm
They were designed to drain water into the fenders. The problem is junk (leaves etc) piling up around the vents and retaining water and blocking the passage to freedom for the water.
sounds like i am not going to worry about it if i have to remove the whole cowl lid..... can i cry out loud or will i be a sissy?
The mustang houses have a kit where you silicone plastic top hats in through the bottom of your cowl. Its a poor repair at best but can work if yours are not too far gone. It will not stop the rust. Sooner or later you will have to remove the cowl if you want it repaired the right way.
I've removed my cowl and repaired the vents, and honestly, it really wasn't that hard. Removal was made much easier with a good spotweld cutter (Rotabroach). Took a weekend on and off to remove it, and sporadically working on it over the next couple weeks had new metal welded in (made a new hat out of flat stock for the pass side). All that's left to do once I get the car ready for primer is some POR 15 and seam sealer, then weld the top back on. I am not trying to make it sound like this repair is easy, but it's not impossible for even a novice like me. After hearing about it in the past, I was very intimidated to even get started on it. The point of no return comes pretty early. It just proves if you set your mind to it, you can accomplish just about anything.
One major problem I drive the maverick everyday to and from work and i cant afford it being down too long...but i guess i could drive the car with the metal removed....LOL... the only problem is i saw the windshield out...does that need to be removed?? and i also do not own a welder.... i wish i had one at this point thanks
that is just downright sucky,.,..i just had the windshield and rubber seal replaced this past friday.......welll i am not about to cut out that new seal...i got it at a GREAT PRICE 68 for the windhsield......40 installl......40 for the seal.....$160.00 grand total but the back glass is not available....
were abouts did you get it..... and was that "unfurtunately it was a KY. car" or "unfurtunately it has some rust"
unfortunatly a KY car since it has so much rust....it was sitting behind a barn for 16 years....i live in arizona and we dont get that kind of rust here the windhsield was from a local store....they have only the one store....
I have a bunch of back windows. From an earlier post it was believed these windshields were getting hard to come by. Then later it seems they are not. I bought the only 3 of these that my buddy could find.
my back glass is in good condition.... no chips...little scratching.....a little paint overspray from the first owner..... i think all i need is the rubber moulding and then just take it back to the place that did my windhsield.....they said they can replace the seal for 40 bucks if i have the seal.
Another person that you can get a lot of insight on this repair from is MavMark. He did it to his Grabber and took a lot of pictures of the project. He is quite willing to share his experience with any of us. If I'm not mistaken, he put everything together somewhere in a sort of tutorial. It might be on his website.
Yeah, my car had the cowl rot problem too. Cars built after about 1975 or so(can't remember exactly) were actually given galvanized cowls. My '77 was horribly rusted out underneath, but the cowl was in great shape. On the other hand, my '72 had very little rust on it elsewhere, but the driver's side of the cowl had a large rust hole that let water pour onto the floor every time there was a good rain. I put together a few pages of pictures and explanations here: http://www.maverickcomet.com/TechArticles/TechArticles.asp If this is a car you intend on keeping for awhile(and put time and $$$ into), I would highly recommend trying to do this the "right" way. If you don't the problem will come back to haunt you. For me, I couldn't see going back in a few years and doing everything over again after I already had the paint and body work done... To do this you will need to remove the hood, fenders, windshield and dash. On my car there were about 98 spot welds in all that needed to be drilled so that I could remove the top of the cowl. A couple of my tech pages are pretty helpful in showing what ya need to do to get the cowl top off. I think the biggest roadblock is probably having access to welder to put it back together. Body panel adhesives may work for putting the actual cowl top on, but there is an "extension" on each side the connects the fender apron to the cowl that seem to be involved with body rigidity...welding is probably the only way to go for those. I had my dad weld mine back together with is Craftsman gas MIG welder. You also said that this is your daily driver...I don't see this repair as being practical unless you can find something else to drive in the meantime, especially never having done something like this before... Short of a full repair, you could probably take the lower part of the dash apart and try to get to the holes with some roofing tar and mesh screen. That is what someone did with my car before I owned it. It looked like it worked for quite a while before the rust ate it's way around the repair... My $2.98
