74Coupe

My 74 has A/C therefore the rear Astro Vents are blocked off and non functional. There is no drain as in non A/C cars.

When I wash the car water collects in the pocket where the grills are.

Previous owner, Bubba, would unscrew the grills and stripped the fiber glass and/or what the screws, screw into. Screws just spin and don't tighten.:cry

I'm sure there is a quick and easy fix so that I can remove the grills for cleaning, and yet replace them so they are tight.

Any suggestions???

Thanks

SharkAttack

To remove the screws, try a magnetized screwdriver. To reinstall them, try the metal tabs designed for sheetmetal type screws (clip onto fiberalss or other thin materials, commonly used by GM for interior trim parts).

Marks69BB

There ARE drains that exit out the rear wheel wells at the top behind the tires. Yours are probably clogged. Pull the rear tires, put some water in there, and stick a coat hanger up them to unclog (worked for me :D )

Just rebuild the holes with resin and redrill them so the screws can rethread them. Once the drains above are fixed, you will never have to remove them unless you get leaves, pine needles, etc. in them. Since my car is always garaged, I don't have that problem either.

trw

All the cars had drains, just our AC cars had not astro ventilation.

The screws screw into a regular "C" clip that you can buy at any hardware store.

As said above, check the drain, it exits over the center of the rear tire.

Hope this helps.
Terry

Juliet

On 1970 anyways (not sure what changed later years since they moved the aft firewall forward) - the drains in the non-AC cars go sideways and dump in the rear wheel wells. On th AC cars the drains go straight aft and dump just in front of the gas tank. I suspect yours are clogged. There are pictures of the drain exit trim pieces on my website - get a wire brush on a flexible wire, like you'd use to clean an engine block passage out and start cleaning out the crud. :D
http://www.annapolis.net/julepage/gastankarea.htm
You can see them here on my '70 w/ AC on the aft wall, top right corner of the picture.

74Coupe

OK Just went out and pulled the grills, there are only 4 holes in each side, the holes the screws go in. From above posts it looks like Bubba was here and already filled in the drains holes, he even removed the metal clips for now I'm sure that the fiberglass is the only thing holding the screws :mad :mad

Looks like I going to start looking for the parts and see if I can correct it. Anybody got any spares laying around???

Thanks for the help.

a454corvette

'74 Air coupe, no drains here............

Juliet

Standing outside looking down into the vent catch area, I can NOT SEE the drains. There is this diagonally installed piece (sort of a splatter piece) with very rough edges and lots of factory glue ooze on it. I was hardly able to get the wire snake brush to turn to get into the hole when I knew where it was. I was able to access it from below though. Those little covers are riveted onto the body. They're sandwiched between the front of the fuel tank and the rear vertical wall of the passenger storage area. ~Juliet

Chuck Gongloff

Believe me, there are drains in all. GM wouldn't design a car that would hold a quart of water in each recess. :) Commonly these get plugged, with leaf debris, twigs, etc. Some drain to the rear, right behind the bulkhead, in front of the gas tank, and some run off to the outboard side and drain into the fender wells. I honestly don't know how the different years vary, how coupes and convertibles vary, and how AC---Non AC cars vary, but they all have drains. Hope this helps. Chuck

a454corvette

Just went and double-checked. NO drains. It would only hold a couple of ounces of water, nowhere near a quart. This '74 A/C car has only a shallow trough the depth of the grille, ~.25-.38" deep. There is a closeout plate bonded to the bottom. No nipple on the bottom side, just 4 bosses for the screws, this is looking at the underside of the rear upper panel, behind the seat. I'd guess the design was changed in '74? I stripped this car , there were no drain holes or repairs to the grille pockets.


[Modified by a454corvette, 6:45 PM 12/23/2002]

74Coupe

a454corvette,

I agree, there are NO drains in mine either. But I'm still not sure that if there were, they may have been filled in when the car was painted about 6 six years ago.

Mine grills are the same as you described the depth of your indents and their are no nipples on the underside of the deck.

I'm still kind of :confused: