Hi, I haven't been around since I was a kid. Basically I have a hotrod that was made in the 80's, that I bought as my first truck in the 90's. It's a good runner, but some things on it were done a bit strange.

I've been prepping this thing for paint for what seems like an eternity, my motto is, "it's just a old hot rod, just get paint on it the way it is....
Anyway so I replaced a bunch of panels, fit those panels to the old panels, un f'ed the running boards re aligned the hood and fenders... fixed... You see how this is going.

The current thing stuck in my craw is the way the top of the cowl fits the hood. I have the hood fit to the corners of the cowl nicely but the whole spot in the middle is low. Upon further inspection the spot is low looking at it without the hood for reference. I never realized my truck was missing the cowl vent but at some point it had been shaved. I'm not great at metal work and it's going to take me an eternity to make it from scratch so I just want to check to see if there is a patch panel to cover up the cowl before I throw another month of cursing at a tiny area of the truck that nobody has ever noticed including myself after 22 years until a month ago.

 

Are you saying that you're missing the cowl vent cover and just noticing it now after 22 years...

 

Missing in that there is a hole in the cowl, no... Missing in that it was removed and filled in, yes. It just never crossed my mind that some of them didn't just come like that.

 

If it's been welded shut it will be a big job to undo, by the way you didn't mention the year of the truck..I have 3 56's and I eliminated them on all of them..

 

It's a 56, and yeah. I looked at the parts involved and it seems that making a better fitting patch would be the easiest... aside from leaving it be. That being said I generally make patches out of other fenders or for very simple shapes. I was looking for a pre made patch because it look like besides the right angle in front (z I guess) it also needs to curve up towards the cab on the x asis and down towards the fenders at the y axes. That is the type of thing that will have me banging my head against the metal, I assume.

 

Check with Midfifty, if memory serves me I think they had a patch for closing it off. I used the top skin when doing mine from the original. My Mercury build thread has some pics in it..

 

Thanks, glad to know their website hasn't changed... It's like finding a working coin battery in a junk drawer. I'll call tomorrow.

for future reference, here is the pdf of their 2017 catalog that does show the part. Their previous 2008 catalog lists their in house part number as .0901-56