Soft Top drains and those little flap thingies

Let me know what you find out cuz I need to clean my drain too. Also, carbon monoxide is odorless? so you won't smell anything. At least you have the solace of dying in the best car ever. Seriously, I think people would've died by now if that were the case.

I cleaned my drains for the first time ever in 15 years of owning the car just a few weeks back. I had my concerns about how to take off the side vents but it was actually fairly straightforward. Just don’t lose the clips when you do it. Also, don’t use a screwdriver to remove the vents, you should use the appropriate body panel removal tool to avoid scratching up the finish on either the vent or the car.  As far as the drains go, they do nothing except for holding onto some debris when the top is down (well, more appropriately, they allow water to drain so it doesn’t accumulate in the car). There should be no concern about carbon monoxide poisoning if you were serious about that. In fact, the only way you could be carbon monoxide poisoned is if you have a significant exhaust leak. Being that everything on the car is in the back, that should not be of a concern and in terms of the vents, there’s  no connection between where carbon monoxide would potentially be and the vents. If you don’t clean them as I have not mine, there’s typically a lot of small branches, small leaves, and some dirt. My car has mostly been a garage queen and I was actually surprised how much stuff had accumulated in those drains. When you don’t clean them for a time, enough debris can accumulate such that it doesn’t allow for water drainage (when the top is up at work and water can seep between the soft top and the lower aspect where the drain opening is)  and the water will effectively back up into the storage compartment behind the seat. What I did was since it was difficult to pull out the dirt and debris with a little Mercedes symbol like drain blocker in place, I removed those (i’m not really sure why it’s there anyway). From above with the roof in the open position, I was able to see the top of the vent and use some compressed air to basically force any residual dirt out of the drain (it’s some write ups, it says to put some water via a hose down into the top of the vent and that makes sense however, I didn’t want to make a mess with water and figured compressed air would work just as well and it did. My car still had the flap  valves in place on the exterior aspect of the drain  however, I don’t think it really matters whether you have it  in place or not. The car would have to be sitting in a flood for water to go retrograde up the drain and into the storage area behind the seats and in truth, if that happened, that was a flap valve is going to do nothing in that circumstance.  

I kind of consider myself the poster child of inexperience however, after doing some protracted reading before doing a job, it’s actually fairly straightforward.

Thanks!

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Link to video?

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Your post made some sense. His video made some sense. Combine the two, voila, think I know what to do now thanks!

lol so much for knowing what to do. Is the fabric funnel the thingy next to the bar?

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Oh. I think part of my fabric may be ripped? What am I looking at from the top?

Angle from storage

Also, thanks to you, removed the vents without breaking any clips!  My drain is super clean?!?!

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I think I get it. The entire fabric in my second pic is the funnel. Given how clean my drain is, I think I am ok. Thanks!

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