I'm having my Maverick shot blasted next week, (I'm doing the big panels myself by hand as blasting can warp them) but I cant think of how I will get any paint in underneath the vents in the scuttle panel just infront of the windscreen/behind the bonnet, I want to do this whole car as "properly" as possible, and dont want to have that huge void going flaky and rusting through behind the dash. Any thoughts?!
your talking about the cowl right?? and getting paint under the vents so if you look down into them they are the same color?... i dont know how to for sure to get an even coat under the vents but if you know that you dont have rust in the cowl im sure some one can help you on here or at a paint shop. if you have rust you might want to think about closing off the vents since youll have to cut them out to fix the rust anyway thats what i did and looks really clean.
Short of chemically stripping the whole car (dipping it in a HUGE vat) You cant remove much paint from the cowl inner(scuttle panel)without removing the outer cowl panel. Media blasting can remove some of the crud/paint but not all. Besides if you get it stripped without disassembly getting full coverage with paint in there is going to be entertaining to say the least...
as your car is pretty rusty in general i recommend drilling up the cowl vent area. here's some pics of how to do it: http://www.72comet.de/gt/index.php?id=26
Just drilling the spot welds? I was thinking about that but I couldn't see the welds as all rusty and crappy at the mo, but I think I will do it that way! Then I can clean it right out and paint the inside before putting it back together again. Was going to paint it black in there as I'll never be able to clean it and bright yellow may show up a lot of crap, but if I spray it black then how will I mask behind when the colour goes on the body so I dont get yellow overspray in there?!
To temporarily mask the inside of the cowl, perhaps loading up the inside with shaving cream might work. You could wash it out later. Other than that, after painting the body, masking the outside and using an airbrush to paint the inside of the slats again to shoot black on top of the overspray would be the way to go. I appreciate this level of thought and detail.
Or- I believe you can fit a hand through the fresh air duct on the drivers side- fill it with old sheets or cloths, dont fancy trying to airbrush through the slats! Cheers for the heads up on the spot welds holding the panel in
Aaaah ... you don't have A/C .... you can reach up through the passenger side too if you have the heater out ...
After a look over the weekend I had forgotten there are 2 small panels over the ends of the cowl and inner wings that cover up the spot welds- it doesn't look too bad in there so what I'm thinking now is clean it up with wire brush on pole through the drain holes in the ends and air ducts, then spray it with a probe with underseal or something similar. It's only to protect it from rain water sitting in the joint at the bottom, the slots in the top are so thin you don't really see much in there.
