i have a 69 f-250 flat bed and it sat in the woods for a few years. it has accumulated leaves and dirt and pine needles under where the wiper arms are how do you clean this area out without a cutting torch

 

Some rigs have a body plug in the center of the cowl.. open your hood and look above the firewall. I used a small shop vac. Now....

... close both the driver side and passenger side footwell vents. Then.....

....Turn the steering wheel to full lock to one side and remove the splash shield in back of the front wheel well... the cowl vent bowls is where fresh air comes into the cab. Fashion a small hook out of a coat hanger and poke/prod/hook the debris outta there. Use liberal amounts of water to rinse until clear and free flowing. There will probably be a body screw or bolt in the way of the drain. That's one of Ford's bright engineering ideas.

Repeat for other side.

 

You can also remove the vent covers in the kick panels and get your hand in there to get the big stuff out then vacuum it out.

 

A powerful leaf blower works pretty good if you have one. Blow in both directions when the material is dry; cowl-to-cab and cab-to-cowl. Also use the water trick. Alternating between these two, over time, will give pretty good results. Maintain using the same techniques thereafter.

Good Luck,

Matt

 

I know this is an old thread, but I just barely did most of this and I wanted to add how I did it for "the next guy". I just took over a '78 F-150 Custom that for the past 10+ years has not been moved much. My dad died in '87 and my mom used the truck a little for the first decade and a half after that but eventually it mostly sat and waited. The neighbor's pine tree continued to grow and in the last 5 years or so seemed to be dropping needles at a ridiculous rate. The vent intake/cowl under the wipers was basically totally full of pine needles to the brim. I was not sure how I could clean those out but the following method worked great: I first broke up the matted pile of debris, which was like a solid block, with a plastic coated hanger, with a little loop on the end. I admit I also used a straight screwdriver for the first "bust" under each vent hole but then used the coated hanger to protect the paint/finish for any additional breaking up. Next I got out the air compressor and a shop vac, and I used the compressor to blow the debris more or less toward the vac. Much debris came out all over the hood, but it was then easy to blow away and much was caught by the shop vac hose also, and I think the vac helped a lot to speed things up. I worked across the entire hood from end to end, sucking up needles all the way. I then opened both vents on the inside and cleared those out also with the hanger and the vacuum and the compressed air. As I got near the end of the mess I had to go back and forth a few times because the debris would end up on top under the hood vents and then back inside in interior air vent space. With this method I got the entire vent area nearly spotless in about two hours. The job looked like it would take "years" but it went pretty fast with this method. I could remove the vents also and I still might but I didn't want to try the old screws at first and did not need to. The last thing I want to do is ensure the drain is clear and then I want to flush a little with a hose. That's what I was here trying to find out-- where the drain exit is. I don't want water coming out the interior vent holes so I need to ensure the drain is clear first. I think I got that info and I hope I can find it but I wanted to share the easy clean-out method that I also think is fairly "safe" for the paint job. In my case I plan to finish repairs and restore my dad's truck as a working memento so I wanted to be sure I didn't damage the paint in hard to reach places. I see little or even no rust under that pile of debris which is amazing.

 

Be sure to clean out the inside of the heater box too. The motor blower resistor inside gets red hot in use and is a dependable way of setting the truck on fire due to leaves and debris.

 

That's how I did my '79 many years ago. Been needing it now for a couple of years and for some reason I always find something else to do instead!
But with the end of summer looming, I really need to get with it and get it over with. Then make some kind of permanent grille screen.

gotta finish the gutter guards on the back of the house too, so maybe if I consider these both as one job I might get 'em done!

Thanks for posting up.
And welcome to Ford-Trucks too!

Paul