cowl drains

[famous bob]

I tried checking the tech. archives, and google,:banghead: but didn`t find any info. on this. does anyone know how to unstop the cowl drain holes on a 68 barracuda ? all the A bodies are probly the same I suspect. can it be done on a finished car?--thanks in advance, ---bob

 

[moparmat2000]

No easy way bob. You can remove your heater box on the right side, and fresh air vent box on the left side, and reach up through the holes going into the cowl and try to dig what you can out.

However the drain holes in the sides of the cowl are probably also plugged. These cant be seen as the fenders overlap them. You may be able to unbolt the fenders at the top, and carefully move them away from the cowl a few inches to get in there at the cowl drains. Maybe use a modified coat hanger with the end shaped like a hook to pull leaves and trash out.

Once you get most of the blockages loose and removed, id suggest parking the car in your driveway, and flooding the outside center cowl vent with water from your garden hose to flush the remainder out. With the fenders pulled away you can verify that all the junk is coming out, and gone.

Now you will have to clean out the lower fenders as everything from the cowl will likely have accumulated there. I am assuming that you have twigs, leaves, dirt, mulch etc in the cowl area that you are trying to remove.

There is no real easy way, unless you want to cut access holes in the cowl on the engine compartment side , dig the junk out, then use rubber plugs or plastic caplugs to cover them up.

Hope this helps
Matt

 

[barbee6043]

just drop in a cherry bomb or M 80. do they still sell those!?????

 

[RogerRamRod]

Where do I start.......Oh, what MoparMat said. I removed the air boxes and bent a couple different pieces of 3/4 PVC & taped them to my ShopVac hose and a few bent coat hangers to stir things up a bit. 3/4 gets plugged easily, but is smaller to get into tighter spaces than fighting the big fat vac hose. also a few blasts with a nozzle on the air compressor hose.

 

[Treblig]

I tried checking the tech. archives, and google,:banghead: but didn`t find any info. on this. does anyone know how to unstop the cowl drain holes on a 68 barracuda ? all the A bodies are probly the same I suspect. can it be done on a finished car?--thanks in advance, ---bob

It's not too hard as long as you take your time. First, it helps if the junk in the cowl duct has dried out. If all the junk in there is wet it takes a little more work. You basically get a heavy piece of wire and bend it so that you can get it up into the drain on either side. There are actually two holes where you can get the wire in there as you can see in the pics. Once you get the junk busted up you can use a blow gun or a blow gun with a skinny pipe attached to blow air through the front cowl vents back toward the drains. One big problem that I've wrote about before is that those stupid drains are lined up so that they drain straight into the fender. The fender has a trough built into it to catch all the junk that drains out of the cowl. I have no idea why Mopar did this!!!! Anyway, your rear fenders are probably full of the same junk/crap. That's why these fenders always rust out just in front of the door (rear fender). All the junk from the cowl drains falls down into the fender trough, collects water from the front wheels and sits there rotting the fender. So be sure to clean out the fenders as well because THEY WILL RUST OUT if they're full of junk. The fenders also have a drain hole under the rear portion of the fender. All these drain holes were designed to drain water. Water will pass right through the cowl and the fender but once leaves, twigs, pollen, flowers and dirt start collecting in there (with a little water/rain) you're going to get corrosion.
I plan to make a cover for my cowl (intake) vent. Rain trees are the worst, those little flowers they drop every year are so small they get into every nook and cranny. They get wet and turn into hard mush.

treblig

 

[Sedanman]

I've used a air compressor with a blow gun to loosen the clumps by blowing from side to side and through the cowl grill then opened both inside vents and vacume them out and repeat. Also make sure you vacume the heater core out too. Is the blockage wet or dry? If wet just hit it with the blow gun to break it up so it can dry out. If you have no carpet and don't mind the mess just leave both vents open as you blow them out.

 

[famous bob]

I've used a air compressor with a blow gun to loosen the clumps by blowing from side to side and through the cowl grill then opened both inside vents and vacume them out and repeat. Also make sure you vacume the heater core out too. Is the blockage wet or dry? If wet just hit it with the blow gun to break it up so it can dry out. If you have no carpet and don't mind the mess just leave both vents open as you blow them out.

just brought the car home from a friends body shop. I washed the car w/ a pressure washer, and totally flooded the vent trying to get the buffing compound out of the louvres (SP). a lot of water build up, wet carpets and all. no stock heater box, aftermarket hotrod heater under center of the dash. drivers side air vent box on both sides. was wondering if a guy could poke a wire up thru the drains from the bottom. don`t have the splash shields installed , due to fender repair, right one took a patch panel. have had fans on the carpet for 2 days, while taking a break . thanks for the suggestions .