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

no! no! no!
that is why they ...rust...no factory paint

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Pull the heater box out, and reach up in there and POR 15 the hell out of it.

 

I think the best thing to do would be to cut the top of the cowl open and clean, prep, and seal it as a preventative measure to having to cut the top of the cowl open and repair, clean, prep, and seal it later. It's really not that hard, just a lot of work.

 

that sounds easier than drilling 100 weld spots.

 

it is...if i can do it anyone can. i cut the top of the cowl off one car and that was no fun putting it back on.

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Also keep in mind the starting in '75 (I believe that was the year) Ford started making the cowls out of galvanized steel. I know my '77 had a galvanized cowl, and now thatI think about it I should have cut the entire cowl out before I sent that car to the junkyard...but that would have been a lot of work.
The rest of that car was rusted to pieces but it had a great cowl...

 

too bad it took Ford till '75 to realize that they needed to use galvanized steel.

i for one am the type to take my time and drill the spot welds out then apply a type of rust protectant to it. but again, that's alot of time and effort for someone that wants to do it as easy as possible.

 

Yeah, considering every Falcon, Mustang, Cougar, Fairlane, Torino, Comet, and Maverick made from 1960 to 1974 had the potential for that rusty cowl vent problem.

 

damn...I thought I had done right...