I pulled the windshield out today and the rust on the dashboard and cowl are worse than I thought. I know you can buy a new cowl from OPG but does anyone sell the dash piece? Even though this section is hidden under the molding I want to fix it correctly.


Thanks
JD

 

I don't think OPG sells that piece for an Olds (cowl or dash). Mine was just like yours and I cut out the bad and butt welded in new pieces that I fabricated. There are those on here that will tell you to find a rust free cowl and replace the whole thing. I wouldn't.


Here's my before (after I cut out all the rust):





And my after but before any filler:

 

Mike,

Thanks for the reply. The problem is my is rusted on the edges and on top of the cowl section - I am thinking I might be better off with a complete section - I just hate the idea of screwing with the VIN tag

JD

 

JD
just remember the upper dash/cowl area will need to be painted with a satin black or even flat black, if done with gloss it will reflect back when the sun hits the gloss finish ask me how I know

 

I had to replace a couple of bad locations in the cowl too

 

I did my cowl repair using this piece from a Chebelle supplier.
http://www.chevelle.com/1968-72-Wind...P6259C808.aspx

 

Tom - how well did this piece work - did you have to fabricate a lot?

 

That piece did not give me to much trouble. The ends need to be trimmed and I was really happy with the way it turned out. Here are some pics of my dash before.

 

Here are some pics during the fitting.

 

Here are some more pictures I should have posted before the previous post. shows the rust trimmed out and the inner metal primed.

 

After welded and all my crappy weld blobs ground off and then DuraGlassed.

 

That is the part I need.I see you welded it all the all the way in front,but original it looks like it is spotwelded to the coil section through the forsvars flange.Did you slide this panel under the remaining dash and spotweld,or did you cut and butweld.The dash panel seems thin to butweld.

 

I butt welded the dash metal. Low heat and .023 wire. Even with everything stripped out of the dash it's hard to back grind it though.

 

as in, grind the backside smooth? why?

Is this one of those occasions where you can back up the seam with a pc of copper, so the steel welds together but doesn't melt thru or weld to the copper?

 

I have done many of these 68-69 dashes and always use the complete upper dash out of a donor car 95% of the time you need to repair the metal below the top sheet meat dash,if you dont your just wasteing your time. When done this way its a top quality repair and is pretty much undetectable even with the dash pad removed.

Greg