Found something to day I'd like to share - always learning a little something new it seems.

Guess either am getting a bit brazen if at least comfortable when it comes to messing around with paint - as i have a couple of days off till time to go back to work and decided I was tired looking at my wrinkled up painted hood and was ready to do something about it. Having learned a great deal I knew where and how to remove the Cowl before starting in the hood. The Cowl came all slick as a ribbon and for some reason I got curious regarding the cover over the fan under the cowl since I've never explored that territory before.

What I discovered under there I wanted to share with you. I found some unwanted rust of course, but also a bunch of jambed up pine needles and good ole fashioned mud and crud jambed up , backed up from the drain. After a lot of vacuuming I still needed a long screwdriver to work my way down to get to the rest and I doubt I even got all of it in the end. One day in about a month or so I plan on removing the Cowl again and the cover and using a garden hose to get all that debris out of the drain. This is a very nasty spot for crap to back up as it is a nasty bottleneck. I even had a heck of a time getting photos of it. I do remember a member having water leaking in his car some time ago and I can easily see how this drain could lead water to leak past the air inlet into the passenger side of the car. From now on this will be the first place I'll send them to for that symptom.

So here is some Photos.


Cowl Removed




After I busted all the paint off the hood I ran inside to get a shower.....I Looked like a Damn Smurf....LoL




This is the cover I was curious about....



This what is under that cover - notice the nasty rust spots I found too.....




Here is that nasty drain...





The drain empties out underneath the fan assembly ...I had a devil of a time getting this photo too.....




Ya know I just could leave with that image of the hood all messed up ......









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Good thing you stopped it when you did. I ended up having to replace the entire passenger side of the firewall on mine. Including new steering rack mount.
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This area is super prone for garbage to collect.I have kept mine clean for years and being I have removed pieces and or parts in those spots and no problem.I usely vacumm this or air gun it to make sure.The one thing I guess is I have kept sunny covered long before the garage was built and with all the pine trees in my front yard it blows a mess on windy days.I have been thru several waterproof covers for sunny and boy do they make a big difference keeping leaves,needles and so forth out of my top valence area!I know on a lot of my junkyard finds this area is usually piled with outside trash in those areas.

I had heard of this drain hole in another post, but couldn't find it this summer when doing all the work on the Hawk...now I have another thing to do in the Spring.

My car was parked under a pine tree for a while and you can guess what my drain filled up with...

Paul94Z28 wrote:My car was parked under a pine tree for a while and you can guess what my drain filled up with...

Candy canes and Christmas ornaments?

EXACTLY!!!

Cowl full of pine needles and engine bay full of possum den. It was definately the low point, esp when the mud started swallowing the jack stands she was on...

More pics I have to find. You guys would not believe it was the same car...

And finally the Cowl,hood,upper header,and upper fender belt line are all the same color once again. Set the wagon out where the Sun could do it's magic today - so hopefully I won't have to see wrinkled up paint on the hood nooooo more!! This is finally the color I had mixed up last year to use on the upper areas of the wagon, Poor ole Wagon has been my Guinea Pig during the years as I tried to learn. It is nice to finally be able to start getting parts of it right again. Of course it isn't perfect, but a far, far cry from what it had been.

I really haven't cared too much what ever happened to this hood since I was able to get a couple of decent ones as spares - and that has allowed me to clown around with this one and learn from my mistakes. This lil job only cost me a little under $13 in materials!! (including the paint)









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