How do you clean out cowl area

[pedal2themetal45]

Hi the cowl area is almost totally plugged (I'm supprised I'm getting any heater flow) how do you get in there to clean it out??
Remove blower? wiper motor?
help
thanks
tim

 

[adsm08]

Should be an access panel in the center near the top out under the hood, and another one behind the dash. You can start by trying that, and it maybe a flexible vacuum extension.

 

[Mark_88]

Aside from the access panel on the firewall, you can also remove the fenders or undo most of the bolts and pop it out...easier to do on the older Rangers...and once you have the fender sitting away from the body there is a small hole at each side of the cowl area that is usually plugged with decaying leaves and other stuff...using a coat hanger or other similar long pointy thing you can pull the gunk out of the cowl area...

I found that was much easier to do it that way than the access panel...

Also found that there was a design flaw in the exit area behind the fender that allowed the crud to drip directly on the support pillar...leading to rust damage...those cowl areas were a bad idea in my mind...they collect road spray (aka salt in Canada) and can lead to really rusty firewall and pillar support areas...I was tempted to seal off the one on my new (newer) cab to try to prevent that...but I found that regular power washing and keeping the exit holes clean was simple enough.