Its about that time that i need to start on the cowl , stripping, patching, and painting. So my question is, what are some of the methods out there that you guys use to do these 3 steps?
Are you going to do just the outside or tear into it and repair the "hats" as well? If your just going to do the outside this is what I did. My car had several layers of paint. I started with a pretty heavy grit snad paper on a DA sander and went to town. I got it down pretty good but the cowl vents in the middle can take a while. I used a razor blade to remove the paint and hand sanded the vents one at a time. It took a while but glad I did cuz it looks great.
Rust usually starts on the bumper side of the firewall and goes around the sides toward the doors. Unless you want to do a lot of cutting and patch, here is what I did.
Get the inside first, under the dash. Yes, it is ugly and hard standing on your head for what seems like hours but do the work. I sandblasted mine from inside the drivers compartment and then sprayed a lot of Rust-o-leum on the inside and into the cowl from the outside.
Then put RTV sealer from the inside along all of the seams.
All of this was done before the final paint process.
Ive actauly already stripped the whole outside of the cowl as the whole car is in bear metal right now. My next step was starting the repairing, I have sand blasted under the dash and got every bit of rust out of there, the top hats actualy look to be in good condition. However i want to match the paint in the cowl to the rest of the car since i am changing from a lambo red to a dark metalic blue.
I know opening the cowl and drilling about 100 spot welds is an option but i would rather try and stay away for that.
I know you would rather stay away from drilling the spot welds out and replacing the hats...but I promise you...a few yaers from now you will be kicking yourself for not doing it. Do it once, do it right.
Just one thing to consider for the future. It's really hard to see in a cowl from the outisde, so it might be a good idea to consider painting it as the engine bay instead of the body (unless of course your engine bay matches the body too) simply because it can then be left alone during any future color changes.