Interior fresh air doors...and Go!

RedFish said
In response to Trebligs comments, I don't think completely sealing the cowl is doable. To close/delete/cover the exterior grille would keep the leaves, pine needles, and such out but not water, dust, pollen. There's a crowd of other small openings into there.
As for the fresh air boxes, if someone would create covers, variable vent w/ screen to replace those swinging doors, put me down for 2 pair.

Redfish, I have a spare cowl and I plan to manufacture a cover to fit perfectly against the outer edge of the vent slots. The only other holes/entrances into the box is through the weep holes under the lower edge of the front windshield (I've already plugged those). There are sometimes some small holes coming in from the engine bay side (firewall) but those are also easily plugged. I know that "vent slot" covers are made for 65/66/67 Mustangs but no one (of course) makes them for 69 Barracudas!! I plan to use the spare cowl section to make a template of the surface contour around the vent slots. I wouldn't want to scratch my paint or accidentally dent my cowl so I'll use the spare cowl to make the template. Making the template is easy, the more difficult part is figuring out a way to attach it to the slots and make it look nice at the same time. Then a simple thin rubber/silicone gasket with a little sealer and it should completely seal off the slots from anything that might try and get in there. Actually leaves/twigs/pollen/bugs don't hurt the car body at all as long as the box stays dry. As soon as water get in there all that stuff turns into a mush that plugs up the drain slots/holes on each side. The box acts like a green house and this keeps the mushy leaves/twigs/pollen nice a damp and that's where all the rust starts. If only rain got into the box it would stay clean and probably never rot because water passes right through the box and down/out the drains. The other problem is that the twigs/leaves that happen to get out of the box through the drain holes (SEE PICS) ends up in a extremely well engineered (being sarcastic) pocket built into the rear of the front fender. The pocket gets full of cr@p and stays wet/damp for a long time and eventually corrodes the lower rear front fender (as we have all seen). Again, if only water passed through there it would stay clean and the fender pocket could not hold the water BUT....there's no way to keep the cr@p from getting in there unless you clean it very religiously and often OR cover the vent holes. The vent holes aren't too hard to clean but the rear fender pocket takes a while with a long piece of heavy wire, compressed air and some patience. I have factory AC so if I want fresh air and the weather is nice I simply roll down a window otherwise I run the AC.
I know up North the fresh air box/vents are nice but where I live there is no fresh air except for a couple of weeks of winter (not really winter but at least it's not 95/100 degrees with 95 percent humidity)!!!
treblig