MTFCA Forum

I'm going to post a couple of pics here to show you my current snag, if you haven't looked at my blog. The cowl doesn't mate to the firewall by between 1/2 to 5/8ths inches. I'm thinking that the redone (not by me) body sills are not long enough or not positioned exactly right. I will mount a radiator and the sides of a hood to see where it should land.

If the previous owner fitted the wood firewall to STEEL firewall brackets and then set up the body mounts on the sill, then your body would look EXACTLY like that.

You have the correct bracket for a wood firewall now, and this is the result. I will bet that once the radiator, shroud, and hood are set in place, that the hood will fit fine up to the firewall, and you're going to find that the entire body is set back by that gap.

Good luck.

I had a very similar issue with my 21 Touring a few years ago with firewall to body fit up. I built up the Touring body on the main body sills on the frame that the body brackets were attached to. Luckily I had only attached the two front body brackets to the sills and the rest were held into place by clamps.
My firewall to front cowl gap was about 3/8” and upon reattaching the front two brackets back 3/8” on the sills it allowed the body to move forward enough to fit pretty well to the firewall.
I didn’t build up a near completed body and set it on the frame as some would do and how Ford did it.
I did all the work by myself frame up in a limited space and doing a piece by piece build up worked for me.
Good luck with your buildup!