I, for one, have good cowl vents. How can I keep them that way?

It has been garage-kept for it's entire life, spent a year out in a barn but covered, and another year in a covered hay shed. Other than that, covered, and most of the time, not driven.

So, it doesn't leak.

But, since this is THE weak area on our cars, is there anything I can do now to make sure it NEVER leaks?

 

You could hermetically seal it into a giant ziplock bag! But then, what fun would that be?!?

 

Now THERE is an idea...I would just need a snorkel so I could breathe through the bag while I am driving

 

i wonder if you could spray bed liner in it somehow.

 

First of all congrats on the non leaking cowl! That is kinda rare on our cars. I would recommend to continue keeping it garaged & don't drive in the rain.

 

mine is solid as well, make sure that junk doesn't accumulate in the vents, as long as the water car run right out, it shouldn't rust, it's like that in anything really, but the manufactureres finally made the vents small enough so that crap can't really get in

 

ya' think...

 

When I have the fenders off, I cleaned them with the pressure washer then blew air all around with a shopvac by the drain holes. When it dried I poured thinned eastwoods rust encapsolator down the vents in every direction with a cup to catch it when it came out the drain holes repeated till it looked all covered in there. Then when it dried after a few days did the same with thinned rustoleum. thats my try at it

 

Cover it with some of that stuff they used on that '57 Belvedere in Tulsa...

 

I think something like this is the best approach

 

in the npd mustang catalog they sell a magnetic cover you can place over the cowl to keep water and junk out. seems like a good idea but i dont know if it would fit our cars? i also thought it would be a good idea to pour some thined out rustolem down there but i didnt want it to clog up at the bottoms and do more harm than good

 

another thing besides ...RUST...
seamsealer...it gets hard and will crack...
when i did my(non leaking)...cowl mod...i cleaned the old dried seamsealer out, sanded and put Rust Bullit on and then fiberglass matt. then another coat of Rust Bullit.
...and for pouring the paint into the cowl you would make a mess without ...sanding and prep first.

... ...

 

When I had my fenders off, I blew everything out, and used POR-15 on all surfaces that I could reach and let it drip into areas I couldn't. I didn't take the top vent off though. Where are the drain holes...I may have to get in there and "unclog" them if the POR-15 got down that far and let them drain again. It may have dripped down and clogged them. I am unclear on how they look, where they are located, and how big they were stock.

 

the drain holes are about 1" tall and 2" wide. the por15 would not stop them up. with the fenders off...if you run water in the cowl you will see it run out each end .
you also need to clean out the ...bottom inside of the fenders... as that is where everything drains into.
i don't think the por15 will do any good if the area wasn't preped first...chances are it can come loose and stop up the drain holes later.

... ...

 

Good, then I am all set and didn't even know it. ALL that stuff is clean and POR-15'd. Except for just under the cowl vent, which is still painted with stock paint and not rusted.

I guess I can relax now and drive in the rain