I decided that I'd attempt to patch the rust holes on the upper dash & cowl panels, because replacing the cowl panel would be a major pain in the ass, and they don't actually sell a '69 dash panel (just '67 & '68 for some reason).

I started cutting out the rusty metal... and kept cutting.. and cutting... and cutting. The rust on the dash panel went about a foot in either direction, and extend through part of the cowl panel and into the panel underneath.

So I cut out the worst of the rust (where it was paper thin and holy), and got to patching. There's now a patch under the patch under the patch (in the panel under the cowl panel, which is under the dash panel). In the photos you can see the rusty part I removed laying on top of the dash panel, as well as the piece I cut out of the cowl panel. The big holes are drilled out spot welds.. the small irregular ones are rust holes.

Then I got to work forming a patch for the cowl panel, welded it in, smoothed the welds down so they wouldn't interfere with the dash panel patch (which I'll make tomorrow), and painted the whole mess with POR-15. The drips inside the cowl are from painting the underside of the panel. Eventually I'll go through the whole thing inside and out with POR-15, but I wanted to get something on the bare metal so it didn't form any flash rust.

The dash patch is going to be a pain in the ass, I can tell. The panel is kind of flimsy, and it's a long unsupported patch, so it's going to want to warp a lot. It's also got a compound curve to it that'll be difficult to get perfect with the tools I have on hand. Oh well, we'll see what I can do.