The first thing on my agenda for the Jeep is the body work. I want to get this thing all painted up, drop the engine in and go driving. I figure if I am going to go through the effort of getting it painted, I want the body to be perfect. There were only three spots of rust on the entire Jeep and they are not all that bad to begin with. The first step was to get the old top cowl off and replace it with a new one. I had no clue how to get it off so I had a buddy of mine who used to work in a body shop come analyze the situation with me. We found all the spot welds and figured after drilling them out it should pop right off. Below is the damage to the top cowl. It has the same rust damage on both sides of the Jeep.
Finding the spot welds proved time consuming as it seems someone at some point in time decided to put some type of filler on top of the spot welds. I was able to use a 4 1/2" wire wheel on my grinder and get the goop out of the way. Below is a picture of the channel just forward of the hood hinges. Note the two layers of metal, one creating a C channel and the other on top in the shape of an L. It is the top skin that I need to get off. I will do so by drilling those dents you see in the center of the channel which are spot welds. There are two schools of thought in order to drill out the spot welds. One is to take a drill bit about the size of the weld and drill through it. This would leave you with a hole in the second piece that you are not wanting to remove. While you can weld the holes back up (I did this and will show pictures later) you can also use a drill bit a little bit bigger and try to drill away the top weld while not going through the second layer. This proves a bit more time consuming, but easier to back fill with the welder later.
With the spot welds drilled out (I used both methods, some by choice and some by accident) the cowl is about off. There were spot welds along the channel I showed above, on the top section where the windshield seal goes, and along the internal frame behind the dash. After attempting to get it off, I find a few welds I missed.Soon after, the top cowl is now off.
Above is the process of drilling and peeling the parts back to loosen it from the internal frame. I was careful not to pry on the frame too hard and I will need it straight to secure the new top cowl on. Now if I can only get JeepHut.com to answer my phone calls or emails and let me know where my top cowl is, I could get to work on putting it in!
Before I do put it in though, I have gone though and filled in all the holes with a welder, and ground them smooth. I have also sanded all the rust off and painted the areas that I will not be welding when I install the new top cowl. Below is some pictures of the welding process and the finished product. The Jeep is now completely prepped for the install of the new tops cowl, as soon as it comes in, we will dry fit it and then tack weld it in place.
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