I pulled the panel that holds the diverter door by the heater blower motor under the dash on the passenger side. Doing that I was able to get into the side of the cab where the cowl dumps down into. It also lets you get to the blower wheel and clean out anything that is making noise when the blower is running.

That opening being accessable in the side of the cab was big enough to get the hose of the shop vac in there with room to move it around. It was packed with leaves from the bottom of that box up the cowl where it turns down by the fender.

Once I cleaned that area out, I took the leaf blower and blew everything still in the cowl pan down to that side again and cleaned it out. After that, I took a screwdriver and a hooked pick and moved everything around that was packed behind the grill on the drivers side for fresh air vent by your left knee and vacuumed all of that out too.

With everything spotless and not a single leaf or bit of dirt anywhere in the cowl or air inlets, my 4 gallon shop vac was almost full.

I probably should have done that about 10 years ago......

Good project to do on these trucks to help keep things from rotting out.

 

Great advice. Do you have to remove the e-brake to get to the driver's side cowl?

 

Yeah, it looks like you have to in order to get 2 of the top screws out. I used a long screwdriver and a big hook pick to grind everything up and pull it towards the the vent grill and suck everything through the grill with the shop vac. For me, it was all old crunchy oak leaves, so they broke up pretty easily.

If you are really determined to not pull that e brake and have stuff that won't come out, you can pull the rear of the inner fender back and get to the drain of that box that is about 2" by 2" and also get to a rubber plug that's big enough to get part of your hand in and maybe a small shop vac hose, but it has to be flexible.

 

Thanks for the info. Is removing the e-brake a pain? I haven't tried yet.

 

I didn't mess with mine at all. I'm not sure what pulling it involves. I didn't look to see how it attaches.