1968 Cowl Cleaning and Protecting

Hello,
I was wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks to cleaning out debris and leaves from the Cowl area. Luckily my cowl area (from under the dash) is not rusted thru and I sprayed rust inhibitor followed by some top coating, but I noticed there's still some leaves and debris inside the cowl area. I blew out as much as I could with an air wand but still there's a quite a bit in there. Perhaps a shop vac with a flexible tube attached to the end of the nozzle? I hate to button up everything knowing that there's debris still left there. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am not ready to tear it apart and re-weld everything so that won't work.

Also, assuming I can get the debris out, any suggestions on how I can protect it from further corrosion? I saw a flexible sound deadner and sealer from Eastwood that I could may be try to spray from the cowl vent opening but I worried about blocking the water from draining out all together.

Thanks

Are your front fenders off?

Rob

No. unfortunately not. I wasn't planning on taking it off until painting which would be much further down the road. I was going to get the car running first before painting.

Really need to pull the fenders. as vacuuming thru the tiny slots doesn't work well, an getting to the sides is difficult, the drain are is often gummed up with old crud.

Run as much water in a you can from the top and fish out the debris thru the drains at the side. A large bottle brush can help pull out the crud. If you don't want to pull the fenders pretty limited access. Can be done from the top but difficult as there is little room and you can damage the paint on the vents, o even bend them, if no careful.

You can try a small flex hose adapted off a vacuum and fished up from below, but that involves removing the heater box and vent hat... more work, to me, then moving the fenders.

A PITA area to deal with as Ford never intended any access...

dalorzo_f said:

Really need to pull the fenders. as vacuuming thru the tiny slots doesn't work well, an getting to the sides is difficult, the drain are is often gummed up with old crud.

Run as much water in a you can from the top and fish out the debris thru the drains at the side. A large bottle brush can help pull out the crud. If you don't want to pull the fenders pretty limited access. Can be done from the top but difficult as there is little room and you can damage the paint on the vents, o even bend them, if no careful.

You can try a small flex hose adapted off a vacuum and fished up from below, but that involves removing the heater box and vent hat... more work, to me, then moving the fenders.

A PITA area to deal with as Ford never intended any access...

Click to expand...

Thanks.. I didn't realize that there could be limited access to cowl area with the fenders removed. I will have to look into it when I take the car for painting.

In the interim, I was able to get quite a bit of dried leaves and debris out earlier today. I took a radiator hose and attached to the the end of a shop vac hose. I stuck the radiator hose through the bottom heater/air vent hole. With the shop vac running I took an air nozzle and blew compressed air into cowl area through the small vent openings on top. The shop vac sucked up quite a bit of the debris. I think there's still some left but considerably better.

Cowl Cleaning

What we did my cowl leak in the front on passenger side we pulled thr heater motor and got in that way we cleaned out the cowl and epox it it does not leak any more Tom This was done on my 66 conv