My still-very-new-to-me XKR will get some TLC over the next few months. One of the very first things I do with all newly acquired cars is change the cabin filter. On the XKR it is a very straightforward process. There was a fair amount of pine needle debris outside the filter housing so I vacuumed it all out. Let's check the other side of the engine bay. What? The cover on the other side, while firmly in place, has no plastic screws holding it down... how could this be? Upon removing the panel, I find more pine needle debris. I vacuum it out. Then, in the exact center behind the supercharger ducts and up against the firewall I catch a glimpse of more debris. No way the vacuum will reach there. After careful consideration I devise a method whereby I used a 3-foot piece of oil pan drain hose -diameter tubing and securely tape it into the vacuum's extender so I now have a 1/2" diameter 3-foot vacuum. It took a full hour to get all the debris out! The tube would suck stuff, the stuff would get stuck at the opening, and I would slowly extract the hose with the bit of debris attached.Feathers and all kind fluffy of stuff was packed up in there....

The car is fortunate to now have a rodent-free garage.



The photo represents about 2/3 of what I pulled out.

 

Looks like you found most of a foot and a thong (flip flop) in there as well!

 

The first XK I looked at had that too.

The second one I looked at had chewing marks all over the resonators. Didn't look like anything actually got into the intake, so I bought it lol