body panel alignment problem

[JHS]

Assembling my 1970 Nova and having problem with cowl panel alignment. The fenders align correctly with the doors, as does the hood, but the cowl panel does not; it sits a little lower than the top of the fenders and hood. Am I missing some sort of bracket or shims needed to elevate the cowl panel for proper alignment?

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

There are shims that go under the small screws that hold the cowl onto the top of the f/wall. The cowl panels generally fit very poor, especially at the ends where it goes under the windshield reveal molding. There are triangular shaped, closed cell foam, wedges that are glued to the underside of the cowl - I'm not totally sure what they are for, but.....

[JHS]

Thanks, the assembly manual was some help, going to a junk yard to look at a nova that still has the cowl panel and see what I can figure out.

[Allen]

[ QUOTE ]
There are triangular shaped, closed cell foam, wedges that are glued to the underside of the cowl - I'm not totally sure what they are for, but.....

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe the foam is there to prevent debris from going past that point and collecting down between the inside of the fender and the cowl side panel. Of course, when that foam falls off, then stuff gets down there and contributes to rotting the fenders from the inside out.

[mbxlesney]

I always believed that they were there to help the air feed into the heater core better. I know I have never seen any NOS ones of these.

[l78ss]

shims are a easy fix
but if you don't like using them the panel is made of sheet metal and can be tweeked to fit by a good bodyman

[L78steve]

Shims were used from the factory.

[JHS]

[ QUOTE ]
There are shims that go under the small screws that hold the cowl onto the top of the f/wall. The cowl panels generally fit very poor, especially at the ends where it goes under the windshield reveal molding. There are triangular shaped, closed cell foam, wedges that are glued to the underside of the cowl - I'm not totally sure what they are for, but.....

[/ QUOTE ]

Went to the junk yard and found the donor Nova. Removed the cowl panel and was surprised to see the number of shims that were under the screws! It appeared that a bunch of shims had been glued together at the factory to create one really thick shim, does this sound correct? I put these shims under my cowl panel and it aligned pretty good. Just want to make sure that this sounds correct or did some back-yard mechanic jury-rig this Nova. Anyone got a pic of the cowl panel by the hood hinge, showing the shims?? Thanks.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

I can't say that I've seen 'factory glued shim packs', but the factory would/could use more than one shim at a given location. There are several different thickness' to the shims, so it's feasible that GM would mix-n-match as necessary.

[olredalert]

-----I think those thin shims tend to get glued or stuck together by rust. I have noticed this frequently......Bill S

[elcamino]

Probably not the reason for your no-fit but years ago I painted up my 64 Impala. The cowl screen panel was pitted so they sandblasted it to remove all the surface rust and paint. Then painted it and left it for me to install as I told them to do that. It drove me half crazy shimming and fooling with it on and off for weeks as I put the car back together as it would not fit right Finally one saturday I was looking for some door internal hardware parts and decided to take the good cowl panel from the junk yard parts car. Thats when I realized the body sandblasting had distorted the panel. To much blasting caused the metal to heat up and distort. You could tell the different in the panel when it was compared to one that was never touched. I had the replacement painted but did not sandblast it. The shop had a young guy (owner's son's son) that did the blasting and he apparently was never told to be careful with small parts.