Sorry letank, I had to get to work before you answered.
as I mentioned last night, my poor Blair III Project had turned into the Humid Swamp Thing III.
That fogged up stuff was on the INSIDE!
It was so moist inside the jeep even the seats and steering wheel were damp.
So today I bailed out and got busy armed with info I'd gotten from here and the IFSJA site.
The shot above is the passenger side kick panel showing the wet areas. I had sprayed flat black paint all over to make leaks/wetness easier to see and the yellow arrows point to a few. The leak at the middle arrow had me puzzled since it was coming from above. It turned out the the door switch wire and sheath were very loose and the grommet had hardened and cracked. To make matters worse, the antenna coax cable had been cut off and the 1/2" hole left open.
Same thing everyone else found after pulling the vent housing. Not only were there leaves from my crate myrtle tree but another 5-6" of compost with a thick layer of sediment under that.
The gasket had dried out, was brittle and sections at the top and bottom had cracked and fallen out.
This shot is looking up from the passenger side floor toward the firewall. Right away I was concerned by the sealer and paint that had flaked off at the top. It didn't seem to have been wet any time recently but it bothered me.
When I started cleaning the vent opening I noticed there was a vertical bend starting up at the top of the kick panel going right down through the center of the vent hole and stopping where it meets the floorboard.
Then it hit me...
The previous owner had hit something hard at the right front bumper and it caused the fender to move back and was pushed downward, tilting it toward the ground. I suspect the force of the hit is what caused the cowl and kick panel to buckle.
I straightened the kick panel and moved on.
This is looking down into the passenger side plenum showing the debris packed into the bottom.
I vacuumed everything out then washed the area out and confirmed the drain was clear.
The shot above is from the battery looking into the fan housing.
Air comes in from the cowl and turns left into the fan's squirrel cage then turns left again and goes into a intermediate chamber.
You can see the leaves and weeds caught between the firewall and the fan housing. This area was almost full of soaked sediment mud and decayed leaves...and I wandered why since there is a 1" lip formed by the pinch weld at the opening. You can see the four spotwelds below the 'Cowl area' text.
I vacummed and rinsed this area and moved on to the heater box to the right.
This looking right into the heater box where you can see the heater core, diverter door and the opening into the interior air box.
In the middle of this photo you can see a seam running left to right under the middle arrow. There is a dropoff into a lower area and it collects quite a bit of junk. There were leaves packed up against the heater core and quite a few to the left but not really much durts or rust. I ran the vacuum nozzle in there and sucked everything out...I thought.
I broke out my handy video inspection tool and peeked about inside the air box and found a big wad of those dang crate myrtle blossoms packed into the corner next to the heater core. Some more directed vacuum action cleared that area out.
If you can afford the 99 dollars for one of these, DO IT! The new versions have a much smaller head that you can feed into the spark plug holes to take a look inside your cylinders as well as being very handy for looking into tight places.
After checking the shop vac tub I found this little gem.
This appears to be a factory caulk blob that sealed the cowl/firewall/kickpanel pinch weld that's almost directly under the antenna hole. Apparently it was knocked loose when the PO ditched the jeep.
I dug into the drivers side cowl with the shop vac and sucked this odd looking thing out. It may be factory caulk, but it's hard as plaster. I threw it on the ground and it didn't break. Three big thumb prints in it make me think a PO may have been trying to stop water leaks...dunno and it will probably remain a mystery.
So Dad and I discussed the vents and I decided I would rather close them off since I never use them. He came up with a slick solution for making that happen. He brought a roll of thick vinyl shower pan liner and made a pair of blockoff gaskets.
Badda Bing!
While dad was making the blockoff gaskets I slathered roof flashing sealer on the vent flap housings and stuck them back in.
The vent cover pressed the gasket against the vent housing and I ran an external bead to add a third sealant layer.
I then laid out a roll of fiberglass door screen and laid it over the cowl.
After making a pair of + shaped cuts for the wiper towers I laid the cowl panel over it then put the screws in all the holes except the 3 ends ones on each side. Once the screws were tight I took my razor knife and trimmed along the gap between the panel and the body for a very clean edge.
I lifted the rubber seal the cowl panel rests on and trimmed the firewall side.
120PSI from an air hose showed the screen wouldn't move around in the wind.
New wipers and an hour and a half sucking water out of the carpet and backing and it was Beer-Thirty.
I'll do an extended water hose test tomorrow after the sealant cures and report back with a
or an
Jim
.
Someone previously had drilled two small holes just below the passenger side air vent to mount something. When I asked Dad to plug them with sealant he missed the upper hole which was dribbling water. I gooped it shut and laid some metal tape over to keep the plug in place.
