Rusted Dash Panel Repair

Purpose:
1)To replace prior poor bondo repair.
2)To keep body filler use to a minimum.

Before

After

NOTES: The dash panel is not in the best shape as the windshield lip also needed repair but I decided to keep it and repair it. There are several reasons I decided to repair the old dash then to buy a reproduction piece for around $400. Because I am replacing both upper AND lower cowl panels which are reproduction metal I felt I needed to keep at least the dash original to help in providing a good fit later down the road. Fitting so many repro pieces together I felt would cause me problems. Other surprises with repro metal is that it is often times made with a metal gauge lower then even original. In this repair I used 18ga. Hope this helps you guys out with your dash panel repairs!

Here is a shot of the previous repair. It's mostly bondo and is a poor repair.
Underneath the old repair. You can see the rust was not cut out, just covered up.
We need to start somewhere so after cutting out the rusted pieces I try and duplicate the side cut with a template.
Other side of the template.
After making the cut and clamping the piece in. Before I weld this in I'm going to have to fit everything together.
The other side.
I had to fit the bottom area before welding in the side. Here I am adding a 1/8 steel flatbar piece as a shim.
After cutting the lower plate. Again, at every step I try to remember to make sure everything fits nicely so that there are no surprises when I'm ready to weld the final pieces.
You can see shim sandwiched underneath the bottom plate that I just cut.
Here is the shim welded and coated with welding primer.
After the shim was welded I fit all the pieces together for any last adjustments.
Halfway done with the project now that I have the structure welded in place.
Looking at this and thinking I had to duplicate that curve was a bit intimidating but I just take it one small step at a time.
First step was to cut out the jagged edges and make smooth edges. The pinpoint rusted hole in the middle of the curve was eventually cut out also.
This is the inside side. You can see I didn't lay down any welds on the inside. I only welded it from the outside to the area where the spot welds where from the old piece. You'll see why in the next pic.
I thought the best way to go about this was to lay a lip down the side. I'm going to do this in two parts, with this being the top.
Here it is clamped in place. You will see in a minute how it comes down and fills in half the concave bend on the other end.
Top lip welded in place and making the template for the lower lip.
Here you can see the top lip comes in and fills half the bend. The bottom lip will meet it and make it easier to duplicate that bend.
Here I have cut the lip and clamped it in place. What I'm going to do is weld it in sections. The bottom, then the middle, then the area where it meets the top lip.
Here you will notice the bottom section welded and I'm fitting it to weld the middle section. Welding it in sections made it easier to duplicate the curve.
The middle section welded, with only the rest left where it meets the top lip.
The completed underside welding. I don't have a shot of the welding for the last section though, just the completed shot below.
The completed repair after all welding and grinding. Compared to the old shoddy repair this is cleaner, duplicates the old curve better, will require a minimal amount of body filler, and provides much more strength.