Crease in upper cowl. Anything to check before removing?

[Casgar 21]

I'm soon going to remove the upper cowl to repair and prep the rusted, but still leak proof, lower cowl. The upper cowl have a crease in it on both sides, but more sever on the driver side. Is there anyone that have an idea of what might have happened here, and if there is something I should check before I remove it? As far as I can tell from measuring the frame is straight and sqaure, and the frame rails under the floor is level after the car has ben leveled to the rockers. My first through was that since the car had been in some kind of an accident in the front right corner some time in the past the whole front clip had pushed up and bent the cowl. The problem is that I can't find anyting other than the cowl to support that. No damages on the firewall or the inner fender closest to the firewall. The fender to cowl reinforcement plate in the picture seems to conform to the cowls crease perfectly too, and it's pretty thick compared to the rest so I have a hard time beliveing that it would bend. Is it just some dropped part from the factory that they decided to install anywa since it would most likely never be seen?

Crappy picture, but you can se what I mean.

 

[aslanefe 333]

I do not have a car with fenders removed at the moment but that crease from forward out board of cowl top towards the middle of the windshield does not look right. In regards to rockers being parallel with floor supports, did you see this thread?  May be it is worth leveling the floor supports per that thread and checking the frame measurements instead of leveling per rockers.

[fvike 173]

My car had those, and I suppose they are from my crash. I never had the fenders off prior to the crash, so I cannot know for sure. But the right frame rail was bent.  Anyway, I decided to add Boss 429 reinforcements to strengthen it.

On 12/13/2014 at 11:17 AM, fvike said:

I'm adding reinforcment just like the Boss 429 has. This is an area that saw som twisting force in my crash. The Boss 302 reinforcement plates are also going in.

 

 

 

 

They are going to be welded in, and with the Monte Carlo bar they will triangulate the whole firewall area.

 

[latoracing 256]

That doesn't look good. Quick check would be to put an export brace on it or get the rockers level then see if the top of the front frame rails are on the same plane as the rockers. The front of the car could be bent upwards. Is the firewall dented in at the top of the rear apron as well? 

[Casgar 21]

5 hours ago, fvike said:

My car had those, and I suppose they are from my crash. I never had the fenders off prior to the crash, so I cannot know for sure. But the right frame rail was bent.  Anyway, I decided to add Boss 429 reinforcements to strengthen it.

Judging from the pictures here it looks like the driver side had a slightly bigger crease than the passenger side? Did you notice any obvious damage to the firewall? My frame rails doesn't appera to be bent like yours, but twisted relative to one another. See below.

4 hours ago, latoracing said:

That doesn't look good. Quick check would be to put an export brace on it or get the rockers level then see if the top of the front frame rails are on the same plane as the rockers. The front of the car could be bent upwards. Is the firewall dented in at the top of the rear apron as well? 

The firewall doesn't appear to be dented from what I can tell. At least nothing as obvious as the cowl. I'm gonna measure the tilt tomorrow and compare the rails to the rockers. Should they be close to parallel horizontally? The car is supported in 6 points, just behind the radiator support, on the rocker flange at the rear part of the front torque boxes and on the flange at the rear torque boxes. The floor is removed completely and I'm in the process of manufacturing and fitting inner rockers. The car was put on supports before the floor and export brace was removed, so any twisting was already in the car since before.

I did take some measurements this evening with a level 1600 mm water level on the floor, which should give a hint of the side to side twist. The numbers are in millimeters and is the distance between the level and the underside of different parts of the car. 10 mm = ~0.4 inch.

The measurements are from top down as follow:

Front frame rails
- between shock tower and sway bar mount
- far rear end of frame rail
Note: The distance to the center of the firewall between these 2 measuremetns are approximately the same.

Rocker panel
- just outside of the frame rail measurements
- front part of the rear torque box

Rear frame rail
- middle of rear torque box
- rear spring mount bolt

The front frame rails doesn't look to be damaged, but apperare to have twisted with the firewall as the pivot point. The right shock tower, battery apron and radiator support is to be replaced, which would make the right frame rail the easter rail to fix before welding everything together. I would have to level the car according to the thread aslanefe posted to know exactly which side is twisted and how much before comitting to anything though.

The passenger compartmens also seems to be slightly twisted relative to the rear torque boxes. I guess this should be the first thing to try and get straight before putting in the floor and inner rockers? Adjusting this to be straight would make the difference between the front frame rails even bigger. The front measurement would be close to 421/415mm while the rear would be 168/170mm. It's late here now, but I'm gonna go and check tomorrow exactly where the pivot of the frame rails would be. If they are an equal distance to the pivot then it would mean that the left rail would have to be moved down at the pivot point, or the right rail up. Or maybe the differences starts to be within accceptable marginal? It first needs to be adjusted to the factory measurements though.

The car has also been hit in the rear left corner which is evident in the less than stellar floor repair behind the tail light. The left rail has a slight bend downwards from around the front of the gas tank which might explain the difference in the rear. This might also be a good thing to fix first, just to be able to determine where the reference point for the rest should be.

 

I think that covers every thought I had while staring at the car for an hour after the measurements. :) Thoughts?

 

[aslanefe 333]

May be they jumped the car and hitting front wheels hard pushed the front frame rails up and caused that damage. The schematic on the post I linked is the best source we have and I would level to/check those dimensions (not the rocker panel) and get them right if it was my car.

[RPM 1,190]

Looks like a frame shop visit is in your future. Easy fix for a quality frame guy. 

[fvike 173]

The impact was on the passenger side. But I can't remember what side had the bigger crease.

10 hours ago, Casgar said:

Judging from the pictures here it looks like the driver side had a slightly bigger crease than the passenger side? Did you notice any obvious damage to the firewall? My frame rails doesn't appera to be bent like yours, but twisted relative to one another. See below.

 

[Casgar 21]

Would it be best to fix the frame when as much stuff as possible is removed from the car (floor, right shock tower, radiator support)?

Also, is the X-6 in this from the bottom of the frame rail? If so I need to lift the front like 2", which doesn't make any sense. Or does "side rail" mean the outward flange on the top of the frame rail? If so then the drawing is somewhat missleading.

Not having english as your first language is confusing sometimes.

[aslanefe 333]

7 minutes ago, Casgar said:

Would it be best to fix the frame when as much stuff as possible is removed from the car (floor, right shock tower, radiator support)?

Also, is the X-6 in this from the bottom of the frame rail? If so I need to lift the front like 2", which doesn't make any sense. Or does "side rail" mean the outward flange on the top of the frame rail? If so then the drawing is somewhat missleading.

Not having english as your first language is confusing sometimes.

I am interpreting "side rail" as "floor support/frame". You adjust X-6 location to 6" from your datum line (which is your reference line or distance from your level table to bottom of front frame rail at that location which is also marked with X on top view). Then you adjust X-6 1/2 which is 6 1/2 " from center of rear spring front bolt to your level table. Also, the aft end of rear frame rail has the be 1-13/16" when X- 6 1/2 is set. Looks like when you adjust front frame to X-6, the part of the frame rail after X-6 location is parallel to your level table. Then you check if A which is the distance between your level table to bottom of front cross member (the piece that is welded to tie front frame rails together in the front) , B (which is the distance between your level table and bottom of front frame rail at the cross member support area which is the tube bolted to tie front frame rails together), C etc. It will be easier to align these without the floor, shock tower, and radiator support. I think your A and B dimensions are going to be longer than what the sketch requires and you will have to push A down. With the shock tower missing, when you push A down, it may not pull the crease on the cowl out. But you can push it out from under the cowl after you get A and B right. Hope I was clear, if not ask.

[aslanefe 333]

By the way, you also need to check front to back dimensions on top view to see if the front rails moved back/side.

[redmastercraft 10]

I had similar dent in my cowl.  The car had been jumped or put into a ditch at some point.  Took some time to find the bend but the frame rail was bent up right in front of the shock tower.  All that force was transferred along the shock tower brace into the cowl.  You could also see evidence in the firewall and the floor pan of buckling.  

[Casgar 21]

I have leveled the car according to the drawing and have some data, but I might have to level it again since there is some confusion again regarding where to measure from.

Metric reference

My measurements

The red numbers are mine. In case of two number at the same place the first one is always the left side, or front left to rear right in the case of cross measurements. Feels like most numbers are within acceptable margain.

Some notes:
- K is shorter because the rear hole is just ahead of the spring shackle bolt on my car. No hole further back as in the picture. 69/70 differences?
- The radiator support to floor support hole is about the same distance on both sides. The measurements differ because the outer plate of the front frame rail sticks out 5mm more on the right side.
- E and F is not measured since the front suspension is off. The right shock tower is bent at the UCA mounting holes. Rear hole is 15 mm out and front hole 10 mm out compared to the left shock tower.

Anything else that you guys think is wrong/weird?

 

On 5/10/2020 at 6:25 PM, aslanefe said:

I am interpreting "side rail" as "floor support/frame". You adjust X-6 location to 6" from your datum line (which is your reference line or distance from your level table to bottom of front frame rail at that location which is also marked with X on top view).

When reading the description for B and C they seem pretty specific on exactly where to measure. "Side rail" should probably reference the front frame rail based on the wording in B and C, and not the floor support. Around the X in top view for X-6 there is 3 layers of metal. They are from top to bottom; front frame rail, floor support and torque box. I measured from the floor support metal, which is a couple of millimeters lower than the front rail, and with that A is too high and the 11 3/16" measurement at the rear is too low. Now, if I measure X-6 at the front frame rail metal the front will lower and rear will lift makin those two measurements closer to reference, and the floor support and rails will be closer to level, which they are not at the moment (pointing up at the front). The left frame rail is probably too high anyway since I had some weird gaps between the left fender and the cowl grill plate before I took the car apart.

 

On 5/12/2020 at 5:26 PM, redmastercraft said:

I had similar dent in my cowl.  The car had been jumped or put into a ditch at some point.  Took some time to find the bend but the frame rail was bent up right in front of the shock tower.  All that force was transferred along the shock tower brace into the cowl.  You could also see evidence in the firewall and the floor pan of buckling.  

Did you see a visible bend in the frame rails? My front frame rails themself seems to be completely straight when following the seam with a lazer level (best new tool this year) from the radiator to the firewall. I also can't see anything obvious with the fire wall, and the floor was rotted before I removed it completely. The floor support is also level with the rockers.