68 cowl protection

Hi all..

i`m based in the (wet) uk and my 68 coupes arrival is imminent.. ive eheard horror stories about cowl vent area problems as there as no rust proofing inside and it being a nightmare to repair.. tha car is from arizona/california so i dont expect it to have any major prroblems on arrival.. so is there anything i can do to protect it from the inevitable issues of rust in the future.. like somehow spraying anti rust coatings inside without taking the cowl assembly apart or anything?

cheers,
Mark

Sure there is but you must disassemble the front end in order to do this.

There is extensive work involved...

P.S. Glad she's finally coming to you !

The easy way is to prevent junk from clogging the drain holes. If it is going to be an outside car, I would recommend these. Congratulations on your newest and probably most expensive family member.

Mustang Parts and Accessories

Originally Posted by blidzy

The easy way is to prevent junk from clogging the drain holes. If it is going to be an outside car, I would recommend these. Congratulations on your newest and probably most expensive family member.

Mustang Parts and Accessories

sweet.. ordered one of them.. ta..

i also thought of this.

WAXOYL Homepage > Products > Waxoyl Professional 120-4

or maybe using a similar spray nozzle bottle thing to spray metalready in there then waxoyl or some sprayable rust preventative paint..

*edit*

ive just done a bit more digging and seen a couple of people saying they have taken off the fenders and cut the tops of the cowl drains to get better access..

(i`m learning mustang anatomy in advance here)

is there any reason i shouldnt do this?.. it could be re-welded after.

assuming the cowls are in good condition. an idea im having.

fenders off.. cut drain tops pressure wash inside, then make sure its all dry in there (heat gun on low blasting through?)
or if its already dry use a vacuum cleaner from each side with a long pipe to suck up debris maybe.

then using a mist sprayer and a lonng nozzle to spray a coat of metalready to kill rust and etch prime.. then the same idea for a topcoat.. or maybe the waxoyl mist sprayer.. but something more permanent would be good.

put it back together and make sure the drains are really nice and free draining..

?

That spray wax is good stuff, but it's STICKY when it set's up.

If you remove the fenders and pressure wash, make sure you REMOVE THE CARPET FIRST... Or it will get really wet....

FE

Originally Posted by FEandGoingBroke

That spray wax is good stuff, but it's STICKY when it set's up.

If you remove the fenders and pressure wash, make sure you REMOVE THE CARPET FIRST... Or it will get really wet....

FE

haha.. yeah.. i realised this

I was - about - to do as you mentioned a few years ago. Have Pine tree needles to deal with here, and they drifted in the vent over a few years. I investigated same as you did, but then found was possible to look down into the area through the vent slots.

I stuck a water hose up each end drain hole to flush out the needles. Took like 1/2 hour of constant flushing to do this, for once you thought had got them all, a flashlight would show a few more lying in this corner. Dried it over two days, thus things stayed wet for long time.

Then got paint gun with thin nozzle, and shot down into cowl area via the slots. Waving here to there in movements. Did this before the exterior was painted too.

Body shop said the rust preventors and removers all tended to work the same. They looked out for them selves only. Once you tried to shoot paint on to them, it flaked off a month or two later. Said was simplier to shoot body color paint only. Then ten years later, if rust continues, go in and surgically remove the top and treat it all. If in dry climate as noted this ought to take twenty years then.



Wm.

Once again, more good advice from Will

We just finished the 66cowl repair as you asking about.
Lots of pictures of the repair on our web page:
Cowl Repair

The 66 had been parked in a container since 1978 at the construction site. Lucky for us it had not been exposed to the elements for the last 30 years.
We ran a garden hose into the cowl and made sure it drained out the fenders and checked for leaks inside the car but found NO water. We have a rare Mustang that has not rotted out the cowl or tophats.
We decided to use the "Tin Can" Method to check them out by cutting the end caps and bending them up.
The cuts were done with a 4 1/2 angle grinder and a 1/16 inch thick cutting wheel. To finish some cuts, a hacksaw blade was used.
We used Rust Encapsilator on all the metal to stop rust from forming. All of the metal seams and top hats were coated with seam sealer (Eastwood).
After coatings were applied, we MIG welded the cuts back together, ground down the welds. We then applied paint and seam seal on top of the welds. The area is covered by the fenders so it will not be seen.
It took 1 weekend to complete.
If the 66 had needed new top hats installed, we were going to extend the cuts towards the center of the car and follow the procedure from this link:
Boyd's Mustang: Cowl repair
Luckily, we did not have to!!!

check out our website of the progress
[SIZE=3]Christophers 66 Mustang Restoration and Modification[/SIZE]