I need to put some better screening at the base of my windshield. The holes in the factory screen are fairly large and have gaps at the side. I park near a bunch of trees, and this is the second time a leaf has been sucked into my blower motor. Now I have an annoying sound of a leaf being spun around in the motor. Second time this happened. At least the blower on the 99 Monte is easily accessed.

 

do you not have a cabin air filter in there? there's no way a leaf should be able to get sucked in there

 

Wow this is wierd. How did a leaf get in? I don't have a cabin filter and I have never had this issue. However, I don't have the same parking conditions as you.

 

No cabin air filter on the 99's. Just a straight shot from the vents at the base of the windshield to the blower motor that's in the passenger footwell. I have a 96 Lumina with the same setup and I had to pull a handfull of old leaves out of that one. I guess that most of the leaves just went into the blower and spun around without making nioise, but sometimes you get a troublesome leaf that sticks out of the vanes on the blower basket and it gets noisy. I'm near oak trees that have small leaves - maybe that's the problem.

 

so theres not a spot at all for the filter?

 

My '04 needed an extra layer of screening. Crap accumulated in the corner and was getting "Cheese-grated" into the Filter. In the late Spring, I cut a large rectangle of Filter Material from a Shop Vac Auxiliary Filter BAG and Tape it over the top of the Cabin Filter. I got some larger Plastic Push-in Anchors that come in a Box of 10 at an Auto Body Supply Depot so I can remove the Cowling easier. A quick vacuum does the trick.

 

Same thing happened on my old Chevy Venture van. I had to vacuum it out every once in a while. Pretty annoying sound tho.