Rule #42 - he who has stuff in the air channel cannot qualify for swan.

OK enuf HoHo. The hood vents go into a square-ish channel/tube that runs from a rocker panel, up towards the A pillar, across the front, and down the other side.

It is the path for outside air into the heater/ac system. It is the path for air to flow though the rocker panels, keeping then dry.

Keep the vents along the bottom of the rocker panel cleared. There is access to the inside of the rocker panels from inside the cabin. With the carpet pulled away from the sides - takes pulling up the black door sills - you should see two or three round discs that look like engine freeze plugs but are plastic. Maybe 2 1/2 inches in diameter. They are in the vertical face on the inside of the rocker panel.

Another brickster rigged up a small flexible hose to a vacuum cleaner and sucked out bales of stuff. Worth a try. I've even thought of putting the blower end of the vacuum into a rocker panel just to loosen things up in there or blow some of it out the top.

When I changed out my windshield wiper motor, I found that the motor shaft goes through that square channel. There's two rubber grommets on the motor shaft housing to seal the two penetrations that shaft housing makes.

I pulled the motor, stuck a vacuum crevice tool into the hole, and WOW, glop galore. Then I got a long (12 inches) pair of tweezers and reached in for even more needles, leaves, twigs, pine cone parts, etc. Seemed neverending.



Good Luck,

Bob

:>)