BKelley came over yesterday and we decided to take a cowl apart. We hope to use the bottom section to approach companies for possible reproduction. Even though this cowl was off the car...it was still a bear to separate the two halves.
You should contact Daniel Carpenter, and let him know there would be a market, since they have full access to the Ford tooling already, they wouldn't have to invest in a new die. When I was there, they already have a full warehouse of Ford stuff.
Went through 4 spot weld cutters then took a drill bit to drill out the rest of the spot welds. I take my hat off to anyone who has done a cowl swap.
I used the 5 dollar 2 sided spot weld cutters from Harbor Frieght - I ate the teeth off of 1 and flipped it around - got finished with half the teeth left but still cut - something from HF that seemed to work really well
Did you take a center punch to the middle of the spot weld first? If you let the cutter wander around it will eat them up fast
Yes, we used a center punch before drilling. I couldn't find my $35 cutter that I used when I removed a quarter panel from a '62 Falcon. I bought the same style self-centering cutter but different name brand at half the cost. The first 5 or 6 spot welds were cut with no problem. Cutting #6 and 7 took a little more effort before replacing the bit.
I've done it on both a car and on the bench. I used a Spot Weld REMOVER (basically a drill bit) and then filled the holes in using a flattened piece of copper pipe under it as I welded. I looked at buying one of the reproduced Brazilian ones, but the import process scared me (either not getting my parts, or costing too much). A good cutting oil helps a lot, too!
