Cleaning W126 cowl drains

As part of the installation of the Monovalve elimination kit, I needed to remove the ABS controller bracket.   The bracket was in the way of the coolant hoses.  I order to remove it, I needed to remove the W126 cowl drains cover.   This is great opportunity to inspect this area and clean it.   Cars that have parked outside often have debris here that causes rust.

In order to remove the W126 cowl drains cover, the seals at the firewall and windscreen must first be removed.   In the photo above, I have removed the seal on the firewall but not the windscreen.   Once I removed the firewall seal I noticed that some light rust had started at the top of the firewall.   Both of these seals just slide off.

Next step is to remove the wipers.   As can be seen in the photo above, the end caps push up to reveal the nuts that old them onto the splined shafts.    Once the nuts are removed, the wiper arms must be in the upright position to remove them from the splined shafts.

Once I got the W126 cowl drains cover off, I was pleasantly surprised withe the condition the drain area.   Other than the  surface rust in the first photo the area is completely rust free.   All I needed to do was vacuum out some of the larger debris and use some rags to remove the smaller dirt.

Next step was to remove the surface rust on the firewall.    I started using a wire wheel on my drill to prepare the metal for some rust guard paint.   The wire wheel creates a lot of small dust so it is important to protect sensitive areas with some rags.

Once the loose rust was removed I painted some rust guard on the affected areas.    This should stop the rust that is already there and prevent it from spreading further.

The rust guard paint is black vs the original Nautical Blue.  Luckily I still had some of the touch up paint from when I fixed the stone chips.   I used some of that paint to cover the black rust guard.   This area will be covered by the seal, but it is supposed to be body coloured and I had the paint on hand.

The car is now ready for the W126 cowl drains cover to be re-installed.  Before I can do it, I am waiting on a few parts to be delivered. This includes a new seal for near the windscreen and the rubber seals that go around the windscreen wiper shafts.