Clean Clean Clean Your Drains, Clean Them Every Day...

Ok, maybe not every day, but they are definitely in need of regular inspection and cleaning. Neglecting the drains can cause moisture ingress in the car and you may just find yourself faced with a little flood in the footwells. 

Keeping in mind how rainy this winter was, we wanted to make sure the drains in our Mercedes R129 were doing their job, so to start with, we set out to examine the drains under the hood. If your knowledge about where these are located, like mine previously, is somewhat lacking, this is where your can find them:

They are all narrow and very fiddly to get to so my recommendation would be to arm yourself with a thin stick or something similar to get the gunk out.

On close inspection, the drains looked like they hadn't been cleaned for a very long time, during which they had been busy accumulating a substantial collection of the local flora in the shape of mud and plants at various stages of decay. While the one by the windscreen wiper was too tricky to photograph, here is what the two drains on the sides looked like:

To be honest, I was surprised we didn't have a flood in the footwells.

So armed with a stick, I got my hands dirty (in the true sense of the word - in hindsight, a pair of Latex gloves would have done no harm). And this is what came out:

This is the end result that we will aim to keep:

It may not be the most pleasant or easy work because of how narrow and difficult to reach these are, but it's so much better to keep these clean than to sort out the consequences of them overflowing.