Painting the firewall and cowl

My starting point was here. I had painted the accessible parts of the passenger side of the firewall during the A/C swap in 2005, but the rest of the firewall didn't look so hot. Painting the passenger side was meant to protect what was under all the A/C parts as I didn't want to remove them again, but made for odd looks under the hood with only half the firewall being painted. The cowl had some surface rust, and overspray where the windshield area had been cut in with white paint (a mistake I paid for years ago).

First things first I sanded and primed the passenger side of the firewall where I hadn't painted five years ago. Silly me, I thought the paint would match after 5 years. I addition I sanded the driver's side and applied rust converter where I thought necessary.

After the painted I though the driver's side turned out well but there was a definite difference in shade on the passenger side even though I feathered it in.

What to do? Repaint it when I painted the cowl. This time I chose to go all the way over to past under the heater box.


A good sanding, a coat of rust converter where necessary, and some Dupli-Color semi-gloss complete the makeover. Below the wipers are reinstalled along with the wiper nozzles. I found out the nozzles are brass when I wire brushed them. Since I didn't know what color to go with, I left them natural.


Passenger side looks much better. Grommet from Steele Rubber Products.

Finished paint in the sun.