Before I left for New York, I took a little time to pull the cowl cover off and stick my shop-vac hose down into the cavity between the inner and outer fender. This is a notorious rust spot on the Scout II, as all kinds of crap falls down through the cowl to land here, where it can’t get back out. When it gets wet, it takes a long time to dry out, and you get the idea.
The driver’s side is harder to clean out because the knee vent is in the way (back in Ye Olden Days, lots of cars had manually operated vents at knee or ankle height) so I’ll either have to get creative about getting in there or pull apart the emergency brake assembly to get the vent out to access it from the inside.
I’m now on the hunt for stainless window screen that I can zip-tie to the underside of the cowl vent, to keep new crud from getting in there.
And, judging from the pictures, it looks like someone was in there at some point with a can of undercoating or POR-15, which is a nice surprise.