Block off driver side air intake to smugglers box?
 

I’m doing some AC maintenance on my 83 with factory air. I had to clean out the bottom of the evaporator box from dirt and dust. It seems as though this comes from the driver side intake which looks like it pulls from the tunnel.

I was thinking it might be better to block off this intake and leave only the air intake from the passenger footwell into the evaporator. But I’m concerned that leaving only the smaller intake would restrict total system airflow. Has anyone done this ? I would put some type of filter in it but said filter would become impossible to maintain over time as it would be sealed in by the evaporator, and there is no access from the tunnel.

Bump

Why change a running system?
I see no improvement from what you think of doing.

Unless you drive on a lot of dirt roads, I can't see any reason to try it. On my 85 there is only one air inlet, on the passenger side footwell. I had no idea the earlier cars had an air intake on the driver's side. There is no filter on my passenger side area, but I do keep the area vacuumed up.

Because you can clean the floor on passenger side to get the dust and crap, but you can’t clean the tunnel area. It’s not about dirt roads but all the dirt that ends up on the floor does get sucked into the evap box eventually.