I’ve got time this coming week to focus on getting the Red Bus cleaned up and out from under the canopy, so I’m going to take as much advantage of it as I can. The big focus is to get the rusty areas under the cowl cut out and replaced, everything rustproofed, and then to replace the cowl and install the new windshield. I figure I can get the first part knocked out if I’ve got all the tools and time next week, so I’ve been stockpiling supplies. Today was 80˚ and sunny, so I figured I’d get a head start.
I started by pulling the four bolts on the hood hinges off and taking that off completely. Then I took the two fenders off—I’ve had them hung with one loose bolt since the first day I took them off—and put everything behind the truck. I dragged a folding table out and started walking tools out to the truck. When I was ready, I started drilling all of the spot welds at the base of the cowl out with a set of Harbor Freight bits. After about ten minutes I figured out a good method and I made pretty short work of it. After about an hour I had all the welds out around the base, including the sections hidden by the doors. Then it came time for the point of no return: removing the windshield.
This was actually much easier than I thought, and only took one cut around the edge of the rubber gasket for the glass to come loose. What I found after I got the glass out amazed me: the entire perimeter of the windshield frame is clean. And not East-Coast-it’s-covered-in-surface-rust clean, but original red paint clean. All of the Scouts I’ve ever pulled the glass out of (four? five?) have had some kind of rot on one of the edges, including Peer Pressure. This one is mint. And now I’m going to attack it with a spot weld cutter.
That process actually didn’t take long either, and after about three hours’ work, I had the cowl up and out, safely stored on the driveway behind the truck. What I found underneath was both better and worse than I’d hoped for. Both cowl edges are, predictably, pretty crispy. The driver’s side is worse than the passenger’s. At some point someone got in there and stuffed some kind of thick painter’s putty or other heavy gunk behind and around the vent chimneys, which both protected them and collected moisture, further weakening the metal.
I figured I’d start with the bigger hole, knowing I could look at the other side for a guide to follow, so I started doing exploratory surgery on the passenger’s side. After cutting away the area around the vent, I was able to pull that out and clean up the area around it. I had to cut a section of the overlap off and I’ll have to fashion a new drain vent, but I planned on adding a lip on the new metal that will go down over the vertical edge and give me enough material to weld to.
That strange gasket thing in the photo above is the collector for the heating unit, which I’m going to have to disconnect and pull out tomorrow in order to weld directly above it. I’ve been putting that off because it’s messy and I don’t want to completely fuck up the heating ducts under the dash, but I can’t avoid it any more (and it needs to be overhauled anyway).
I started building cardboard templates for the new metal and got the flat section that provides the floor of the vent laid out. Then I drew out and cut the vertical back wall of the cowl that will wrap around to the door.
From here I have to figure out where the round vent itself will go, cut that out of the center, and either build a new round structure out of 20 gauge steel or see if I can cut and weld new metal to the existing metal, which came out mostly in one piece. I’d prefer to not have to rebuild the whole thing on this side, so that’s what I’m hoping for. I might not get that lucky on the other side.
I left off with a metal section cut and ready to be bent. What I have to do tomorrow morning is go out for a 3′ length of angle iron to act as the top of the vice for my metal brake. With that I can start bending this metal to the proper angles and start fitting it into place.