Hi, all,

How does one remove the cowl vent grill on the driver's side? I need to run some wires through the firewall, and various posts say to remove the grill, but nobody mentions how.

Thanks,

gigabit

 

You should be able to simply pry with a large flathead screwdriver. I replaced my grills a couple years ago and that's all I needed.

 

The vents pop in...and I guess they pop out, too. The original vents on my '03 came in and out pretty readily (push on little ears from beneath w/ finger pressure), but when I replaced the '03 item with '04 vents (because that foam pre-filter just deteriorated) you had to press on the new ones pretty good to pop 'em in. I expect it'd take some good pressure to pop 'em out, too, using a tool as kapps suggests.

 

IIRC, it comes out from the top first (but it may be the bottom). At any rate, if you have newer style with the approximately 1/2 inch deep hexagonal cells, stick a scredriver in one of them and twist it, it shoulld pop out. If you have the old style that is thinner, the screwdriver might break it so you will have to use a piece of cloth so you don;t scratch the paint and wedge the scredriver between the cowl and the grille.


I usually take mine off when I wax and it does not require much force, the main thing is to get remember that one side comes out first.

 

How big of a wire are your planning to run through the firewall?
I was able to get several 16awg through the driver side grommet
without removing that grill... (?) ????

 

It's only a trio of 16AWG for rally lights, but I've got big hands and didn't feel like I could get into the small grommet on the driver's side.


--gigabit
04 MCS brg/b

 

You should be able to get a wire coat hanger through there with a little
loop at the end to grap hold of your wire.

 

BTW, you can get replacements through warranty if you're still covered.

 

You don't need to use any tools at all and personally, I wouldn't use any as you can easily damage the paint. You can reach the little tabs from underneath when you open the bonnet. One side (either the top or the bottom - I forget) pops up and the other side just slips out. It's kinda self-explanatory once you look at the underside of the assembly. Really easy; just takes sa couple of seconds. I had to remove mine to add some chrome trim. There is also a thread on this with pix - just run a search on this site or MINI2.com as I don't remember which site had it.

 

Tontobird makes an excellent point!

My foam pre-filters were pretty far gone and so I made the BIG MISTAKE of pulling them out (they were falling out) and replacing the foam with something else. Because of this, the dealer couldn't document the failure and I couldn't get it replaced under warranty. Big lesson there....I now always let the dealer have a look before I try any remedies. Works much better and has successfully gotten me several other repairs (some fairly major) done under warranty. It helps that I have a super dealer!!!!

In the end, the '04 vents were really cheap and...rather than have the foam fail again and again...I just updated my vents. Lesson learned.

 

I had mine replaced under warranty when the foam got grotty. Much to my astonishment, the mechanic opened the hood, reached under and popped loose one edge and lifted them out.