Progress Thread HeHateMe gets bent

So the time has come to get down to the real nitty gritty. Taking the cowl off to fix that rusty mess. I'm waiting on a bit more 12 gauge to come in to make the shock tower fill in pieces. I have a bit more to trim them back.

But today, I pulled the windshield out...in one piece...not a crack...and got the trim out of the weather-stripping...straight. I was pretty happy with myself. Usually I am not patient enough to get it out in one piece. But I did it. Next up is to get the cowl cover off. I got the pieces off that connect the cowl to the fender aprons. They are pretty rusty. Probably going to have to try to fab some new ones....there's not much left of these to even fix. I doubt anyone makes them. After I get up tomorrow, I start on the 150+ spot welds on the cowl. Which means I need to knock about 150+ center punches. Tasty.

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Well, I can’t say that you couldn’t have encountered the same thing had you purchased a different car. There are pictures of Fox mustangs on this forum that are just as bad, or worse.

Im guessing that those pieces aren’t reproduced by anyone out there, and once you get the top off, the cowl underside is gonna be pretty bad. My suggestion after you fix it to prevent it from happening again, is to slather it with peanut butter.
 
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Well, I can’t say that you couldn’t have encountered the same thing had you purchased a different car. There are pictures of Fox mustangs on this forum that are just as bad, or worse.

Im guessing that those pieces aren’t reproduced by anyone out there, and once you get the top off, the cowl underside is gonna be pretty bad. My suggestion after you fix it to prevent it from happening again, is to slather it with peanut butter.

Skippy or JIF, not the Kroger brand...that's nasty.

It's weird. I think the cowl on the drivers side is ok, but the window channel isn't. The cowl on the passenger side is toast, I can see thru the drain hole there's nothing other than the hat inside, but the door jam and window frame are perfect. I think it's a combination of poor rust proofing from the factory and probably more leaves and :poo: got in on the passenger side and plugged the drain.

Hopefully, I'll find out later today! And my last present to the HeHatesPeanutButter Falcon is a shrinker/stretcher cheapo version from Amazon...thanks for ringing the doorbell at 8AM a-holes.
 
Well, as Marcellus Wallace says in Pulp Fiction, the driver's side is far from ok. But as luck would have it, I'm on a Falcon FB group and a guy has the two areas that are rusted out that we're working on me buying and him shipping to me. Maybe even the cowl cover since mine's a bit worse for wear. It's not terrible, just need to remake the side flanges since they were rusted so bad I just snipped them off. And the last bit on the front center, dude assembling it must have been reprimanded for not using enough spot welds. On the last 4 inch strip I had left to get loose, one I got to number 9, I quit and snipped it off. It was going to end up being cut off by all the spot weld cutter holes anyway.

The nice thing is the top along the windshield was so easy because all the spot welds were obvious and it wasn't rusty. If it was rusty, it was hard as hell to find the spot weld center. I pretty much sacrificed a gasket scraper. I will get it in between the two pieces of metal and beat it along until it stopped, then try it from the other direction and mark where the weld should be. Sometimes I marked right, sometimes not so right.

In case anyone needs to do spot weld removal and are using the HF spot weld cutters. Here's how I ended making the most of them. When you first get them, you can just take a center punch, mark the center of the spot weld and drill thru it. Be careful not to go thru the second layer of metal. On the Falcon, that was evident when rust would start coming out of the hole. The spring loaded tip of the cutter is nice and sharp when new. But after just 2 or 3 cuts, the tip gets rounded down and likes to jump out of the center punch mark.

What I found was take a small 3/16 or so drill bit (until I broke 3 of those off) and center punch, drill a little pilot hole...not even really a hole, just a good indention. Then the cutter would usually stay put. Another bit of advice...let the cutter work. Once it gets started and makes a nice groove all the way around, you can add pressure. If you add pressure before it's cut a full groove it will jump out. And usually when it jumps, it snaps cutter teeth off. And they will still cut with half the teeth missing....ask me how I know. The cutters are 2 sided, so if you break one, get some pliers, unscrew it, flip it over and put it back on.

On my last trip to HF they had 5 cutters on the shelf and I got all of them. Good thing too...when I got down to the end, I had all 5 cutters going thru each one to find one that would still work. I did the entire upper windshield side with 1 cutter. So basically the engine side used up 9 cutting heads.

On to the show:

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This is how it started and the one area that concerns me. Not from it's totally frcked, but how can I fix this easily. I don't care about looks, because it's not going to be seen, unless the door is open and I doubt it then. It' under the fender.


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Here's the bad part. Bottom corner of the drivers side windshield channel. The rust doesn't seem to be all the way down into the hinge structure area. I need to get some pics of the passenger side. Over there the windshield channel is perfect, but down towards the upper hinge it is rusted pretty heavily, but not into the door hinge structure either. I guess I need to make room in the shed for the doors and get them off.

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I found a guy on FB that actually has the 2 air intake hats. But the more I thought of it, I am going to just close them off. If I tag it and ever drive it, I can put one of those small hot rod universal heaters in it....mainly for defrost. Plus, the heater box is pretty much messed up I noticed today. Where the blend door is located is broken off!
Today I got the holes pretty much rough cut to where they need to be patched. The driver's is worse just under the wiper arm. I'll have to cut some more out there. I also got all the layers of flanges off the top of the firewall where the cowl is gone.. Tomorrow, my son is 'supposed' to come over. If he comes over, I'll get him to help me get the doors off. The passenger side will need some repair above the top door hinge and the A pillar inner support is pretty rusty at the bottom. I'll have to fix that, then patch the outer skin back on around to the cowl. Luckily, I don't think this can be seen with the door and fender on.

I also trimmed the shock towers back. The filler panel from those will go from the frame rail and end up on the top plate for more strength.

More photos:

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Definitely need to pull the doors off. It's difficult to tell, but it looks kind of like the lower cowl wraps around and forms the lower radius of both sides of the windshield opening? I would do my best to remove it and make patch pieces to replace the rust with it off the car.
 
Not sure how much you will drive this car but I can tell you the fresh air vents on my 67 coupe help a lot to cool me off when driving on semi hot days. If it is not too much trouble I’d almost put the hats back to get the extra air flow when needed.
 
Definitely need to pull the doors off. It's difficult to tell, but it looks kind of like the lower cowl wraps around and forms the lower radius of both sides of the windshield opening? I would do my best to remove it and make patch pieces to replace the rust with it off the car.
Yeah, on the passenger side, I am going to get the door off, slice the outer cowl piece up further, patch in the heavier gauge A piller support at the bottom and then patch the cowl piece back on. Good place for me to start body work like this, since it won't be seen. The drivers window channel looks a lot more complicated. Luckily it looks like the A pillar structure is fine. I'm gong to drown everything exposed in rust neutralizer as well.
Not sure how much you will drive this car but I can tell you the fresh air vents on my 67 coupe help a lot to cool me off when driving on semi hot days. If it is not too much trouble I’d almost put the hats back to get the extra air flow when needed.
My thought is windows down....even on a semi warm day the vent windows open. I may at least put the passenger side one in to feed whatever heater setup I use some fresh air.
 
I have seen the Falcon sub cowl / vent hats fixed with cut up 65 mustang parts before.
I'm sure this old news

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I would add to that: if you're looking to fix the lower cowl, there is a replacement for '67-'68 Mustangs that is available separately without having to purchase the upper as well. I've read of people using this on '65-'66 Mustangs with a little modification.
 
I found a guy on FB that actually has the 2 air intake hats. But the more I thought of it, I am going to just close them off. If I tag it and ever drive it, I can put one of those small hot rod universal heaters in it....mainly for defrost. Plus, the heater box is pretty much messed up I noticed today. Where the blend door is located is broken off!
Today I got the holes pretty much rough cut to where they need to be patched. The driver's is worse just under the wiper arm. I'll have to cut some more out there. I also got all the layers of flanges off the top of the firewall where the cowl is gone.. Tomorrow, my son is 'supposed' to come over. If he comes over, I'll get him to help me get the doors off. The passenger side will need some repair above the top door hinge and the A pillar inner support is pretty rusty at the bottom. I'll have to fix that, then patch the outer skin back on around to the cowl. Luckily, I don't think this can be seen with the door and fender on.

I also trimmed the shock towers back. The filler panel from those will go from the frame rail and end up on the top plate for more strength.

More photos:

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Have you checked how close Mustang parts are?
Do these cars have cowl drains/clean outs at the bottom of the front fenders and kick panel vents? It’s been too long since I drove or even saw one up close.
 
Have you checked how close Mustang parts are?
Do these cars have cowl drains/clean outs at the bottom of the front fenders and kick panel vents? It’s been too long since I drove or even saw one up close.
No, the cowl just has a big gaping hole at the corner towards the front of the car, the water from there drips onto the rocker extension, which on the driver's side has a hole, passenger side is perfect.

Those fresh air vents in a Falcon work great and you will regret removing them. Especially if the car is not going to have AC.

It's mostly a drag car, so I don't think it will be too bad...but I am still debating. What I can't tell from the rusted out mess on the driver's side, is there a way to shut the vent off, say on a cold day? The tube that connected to the hat was just a big elbow with nothing it it. But it seems there should be some way to block the air. On the passenger side it went into the heater core, so I think there's a blend door there to block it.

Maybe the Peanut Butter He Hate Me Falcon should be renamed the Onion. As I peel back layers of rust....narrated in my head by the Croc Hunter....crikey, there's more rust, let's cut this panel off and see what this sheila has underneath.

More, rust, that is what sheila has. I am working on fixing up the passenger A pillar. I think I have the bulk of the inner structure with the worst rust cut out. I need to run by work tomorrow and get some bigger pieces of 16 gauge scrap and see if we have any 18 or preferably 20 gauge to make the cowl and body side a pillar fill in pieces. We will see how overly ambitious this may have been to tackle. My brother called me today and said I see a whole lotta cutting out pictures but no putting back pictures. :cautious:

Maybe tomorrow some put back happens. I have a physical in the morning so who knows how much time I'll have. Then I am supposed to take my wife for a day trip lunch NYE, and then I am smoking a shoulder NYD. So maybe some time Saturday and Sunday will be available to do some putting back. Then back to work and the heavy work will have to only be done on weekends.

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In my mind, I can make that piece out of one piece of metal,. but I am prepared for reality where it has to be multiple pieces. I'm getting some rust neutralizer to spray all in this shiznit before it gets covered up.

My biggest challenge will be the body side of the a pillar.
 
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Part of my challenge was identifying which layer was which..which part overlaps the next because some of this was so rusted, the top layer is gone, just blended into the next layer.

I'm trying to stay away from the drip rail, which luckily the rust only is up there in the small hole. If you see my sharpie line, I think I'll snip it out there and probably have to make several pieces to make the fill in. Most of that cowl piece where you can see the nut for the top fender mount will have to come off to fix the inner structure over here. Still not too worried, because that area is still mostly hidden by the fender. I'm not looking for show quality, just the worst rust cut out and the end result a 10 footer. Or maybe 25 footer. All with a 110v flux core machine. I also have a better welder, but it's 220 and setup for flux core and my panel is full. I need a 4 pole breaker and do some dancing in there to get an outlet, but I think for this 18 and 20 gauge metal the 110v welder is doing a pretty good job.

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I was worried about how much rust you would run into. A donor car or better body would be on my shopping list, oh brave one. Good luck and welding!

I hope they do not find much of any recent rust on the restoration of my first car. I used rust convertor, Rusty Metal Primer and galvanized sheet metal on the driver’s floorboard and trunk bottom years ago (that’s getting replaced), and there’s a spot bubbling on an period repair in front of one wheel well and another in the trunk lid edge. This amount of rust would be devastating on my project.
 
On my 63 there are 2 large 4x5" metal doors under the dash on either side, that you can open and close to control the vents.
Do you have a picture of the passenger side? I have seen what the driver's side is supposed to look like...looks like what's left of mine is broken in half.
Looking good so far. This is the fun part.
Tear down is so much easier than putting it back!

I was worried about how much rust you would run into. A donor car or better body would be on my shopping list, oh brave one. Good luck and welding!

I hope they do not find much of any recent rust on the restoration of my first car. I used rust convertor, Rusty Metal Primer and galvanized sheet metal on the driver’s floorboard and trunk bottom years ago (that’s getting replaced), and there’s a spot bubbling on an period repair in front of one wheel well and another in the trunk lid edge. This amount of rust would be devastating on my project.

What's funny is there is the front half of a 62 on FB just down in Mississippi maybe an hour from here. But from what I've seen, most are as bad or worse than mine. And I don't have room for half of another car....or money for the divorce! I think I can handle this. I knew going in the floors were totally gone and there would be more to find in the cowl and a pillars. I'm really more worried about the doors. I think the best part of the doors are the door skins. I think the shells are going to be a problem. Probably have to find some more doors.