Eric, I appreciate your post, only wish I had read it before installing the vents. I missed the phrase on page 373, “remove the middle screen,” so when I drove through a hard rain, I got about three or four ounces of water in through the front vents–so even though I installed the baffles properly they didn’t do much good. Today I removed the rain baffles and replaced the 1 1/2″ bolts with 1″ bolts. The covers can be screwed down tight against the weather stripping, so I hope that works. My thinking is that I got what little water I did inside because I was driving 50 – 60 mph in heavy rain. I’m hoping that since the covers are nearly vertical I will get little or no leakage unless facing into a very high wind. Time will tell.
If (when) the threads start to give out, I’ll just have to order new covers (if they sell them). Otherwise I will have to find a way to mount a nut in there. There are glues that melt the plastic for a “weld,” but I don’t know how well the melted plastic adheres to metal. Will have to do some experimenting.
Also, when the baffles were in place I could not get a good air seal with the covers–seemed to make no difference at all. Now I can seal them pretty well, which will help in cold weather (and I will have to hope my dog doesn’t have one of his gas attacks).