Today I spent most of the day grinding down spot welds and welding some holes in the engine compartment. I still have some patch work before I can install the new cowl and inner fender. I removed the inner fender core supports as I am gonna bend some new one to check the clearance with the front suspension travel. I mocked up the vintage air unit , I took a piece of 1/8 flat and welded some studs it. The positioned the unit and welded it to the firewall.

I moved the cowl to inner fender supports to gain some tire clearance. The supports are mounted on the inside of the kick panel area and the lower cowl. Moving the suspension up gives me 1" clearance from the tire ,which should be sufficiant.

I carefully cut out the rusted areas in the lower cowl and welded in some patches. I blasted the rest, applied rust bullet, scuffed and then epoxy primer, with weld thru primer at all the seams.

After I punched holes in the new AMD upper cowl and innner fender, I fitted them to the car with only minor tweeking. I will leave the upper hood hinge area unwelded for now till I fit the hood and fenders.I plan on fully welding the seam between the upper cowl and lower cowl and blend it in so it looks like one piece.

John, looks like you're moving right along:thumbsup:

Thanks Stefan, I added a cowl bar today, Made from 1 1/2 DOM tube 1/8 wall . I plan on doing some moderate amount of cornering with it (autocross ect.) I wanted to add some more ridgity to the car. I will be adding a roll bar soon also.

John,
Nice work. Are you running the fender supports into the crossbar? I like the way you ran the crossbar thru to the outside near the hinges. I may steal that idea:unibrow:

I see you clearanced some of the dash structure. Does everything else fit including your AC box? How about the glove box (not that it really matters)?

Thanks-Wes

Hi Wes, I didn't tie the front inner fender supports to the bar for 2 reasons, First ,I would have to cut most of the cowl away to weld around the tube properly (which to me is not worth the time). The other is I would not be able to access the upper door hinge bolts. To answer the other question , the glove box would need to be modified to work. I plan on running a 10 0r 12 point cage in the body and tying it to the cowl bar. More build pictures at http://s1187.photobucket.com/albums/...uring%20Build/

FYI, there's a nice stiffening kit here for those looking for one : stiffening kits
:thumbsup:

Awesome!!,I bought my frame connectors from them,Great service. I made my own stiffening support myself as I wanted to tie into my roll bar. But for someone who doesn't have the time or the tools, those are great!