1934 Ford Highboy Coupe - Dropping Your Cowl And Tweaking Your ’Rails, Part 2

To create a 90-degree outward bend on the bottom plane of the side plate to match the inside cowl reveal, Cornell used a sheetmetal brake.

This image lets you see just how stout the new subrail assembly is when compared to the original section, which was removed earlier in the story.

To close the gap on the front of the cowl extension and give it a nice clean look, a piece of 18-gauge sheetmetal was trimmed and MIG-welded into place.

To close the gap on the front of the cowl extension and give it a nice clean look, a piece of 18-gauge sheetmetal was trimmed and MIG-welded into place.

Once the subrail assembly was completed, it was finessed for a perfect fit and then bolted into place. From there it was MIG-welded to the inner body support structure.

Here you can see just how nice the inner cowl was finished off with the installation of the new subrail assembly.

After the two pieces are TIG-welded together the small filler panel is ready to be trimmed to fit. There is a slight lip on the top of this piece to space it outward for proper alignment.

In this close-up you can see the melding of the dropped cowl panel; it blends seamlessly into the rocker panel.

With the framerail point shaved and the updated sheetmetal in place, the sleekness injected into the ’33 is quite evident with the bottom of the framerail almost disappearing. Stay tuned as next month we’ll wrap it up with the front framerails getting reworked.