I noticed the drainage holes for the cowl are somewhat small, less than half an inch. If debris collects in there is that not a magnet for rust?

What do you guys do, drill a bigger drainage hole? park in a covered garage? lol

I have only owned my truck for one month and I can already see a bunch of pine needles collecting in the drainage hole, ostensibly blocking water flow.

Any ideas what to do? Other than not parking under a pine tree lol.....

 

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+1 never park under trees if you can avoid it, I think it's the worst thing to do to a vehicle

 

Where exactly are these holes? I suspect mine are probably plugged and causing water to find it's way onto my floorboard..

 

They're tucked up behind the fender, you will see a hole, I pulled a bunch of "sludge" out of mine. I can see how they would easily be obstructed.

 

clean em out with a stick and flush em with water.

 

That's exactly what I did. I was thinking of maybe drilling the drainage hole out a little larger, maybe help prevent debris from getting plugged up in the smaller hole.

 

Might have to pull the floor vents out to get the big stuff. Seems like parking brake make left one PITA.

 

Good idea! fortunately I didn't have any big stuff just a bunch of wet pine needles that were a "sludgy" mess that I was able to wash out through the drainage holes, with the help of a wire coat hanger.

I was toying with the idea of installing some fine wire mesh under the cowl, it would still allow air/water passage but keep out the junk, but there's simply no access to the inner cowl, so I guess I will just flush it out periodically.

 

It's bad when you turn on the defroster and pine needles blow out...
PO parked under a pine tree and duct tape over the cowl vent didn't help. I'm thinking about cutting a clean out hole at each side of the cowl to get the big stuff, before moving down to the lower section.

 

Can you elaborate on exactly what you're thinking of doing, I may be interested in doing the same mod on my truck. Something along the lines of a 2" hole that I can cover with a rubber plug.

 

I just hit my cowl with a hose again, even more "garbage" came out! This is just my opinion but this a **** poor design on Fords part, it's almost guaranteed to rust out if not regularly flushed, just like the rear fender wells.

 

I drilled a hole in the bottom of the well thing (after cleaning it out with an air wand), sprayed some POR rust paint in the hole, and then just left it to drain out. Seems to work better. I wish the cowl cover came off easily so any crud that collects in there could be cleaned out. Sounds like a job for my zip saw, and welder.

 

I drilled out all of the spot welds on my rear fender wells and deathwheeled the rest out. I saw how much rust and junk those rear fenders collected and called it quits on them.

My bedsides aren't as stiff as they used to be, but there's a fix for that.

 

That would be nice. I was at my local junkyard today (they have a couple dozen 73-79's for parts), I noticed a few of them had a 1.5" x 3" rubber plug to access the cowl from the engine bay, most did not have this access plug. There appeared to be no rhyme or reason why some trucks had it and others did not. The trucks that did were earlier models (73-75ish) I didn't find the access plugs on the later trucks. So maybe it's a year specific thing, but why? Anyone have a clue as to why this is?