I decided to take a peek at the cabin air filter today. It's pretty nasty; complete with a dozen acorns stored for later use. I didn't see any signs of a squirrel nest, just a hiding spot for food. I'm curious to know where the intake is for the cabin air, and maybe some clever ideas on how to sweep the entire thing out.

 

the intake on a gen1 is the grill by the drivers side wipers....by the windshield.

 

Comes straight via cowl vent as far as I know. I found all sorts of tree-related crap in there.

 

Thanks for the info! I wonder if it wouldn't be wise to put some sort of screen on the intake to keep large pieces of debris out.

 

OEM cowl vents had fabric/thin-foam-type-stuff below the octagonal grid on the cowls. If you still have the OEM cowls, you can probably see where this was attached but has since perished.

You can buy replacement cowl flaps which have slats. Looks nicer, but doesn't do much to keep crap out.

You can also get cowl scoops (ostensibly to force more air in), but which obviously look a bit different.

 

when the mesh disintegrated in the cowl guards of my 2002, I replaced the foam with a steel mesh. The original cowl guard was two pieces and they came apart, the foam was trapped between the two pieces. I cut a 'gutter guard' to the same shape and used that to replace the foam. Not only worked but looked nice IMO too.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Amerimax-...4#.Uop8wMSTjTo