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Cleaning out evaporator core: Anyone done this?


chucky2

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My air condo has a somewhat moldy smell. From reading around the net it sounds like I could have some junk in the evaporator that's causing this.

I've read where people yank the blower moter and can see a little of the evaporator coil, however from Google'ing pics of evaporators online, you can see that often part is normal looking, the other part is disgusting. So the small portion - at least in the pics I've seen on the net of our blowers removed looking at the coil - of the evaporator that is viewable with the blower removed is not really enough to make a determination if the rest of the evaporator is dirty...unless of course one looks, and what one can see is filthy.

I'm going to remove the blower and start there, that seems pretty non-invasive and something with my skills (or lack thereof) can do, what I'm wondering is:

Is there a way, without breaking into the actual air condo lines, to remove at least one side of the evaporator box so it can be inspected to see how crudded up it is?

Thanks in advance for any knowledge on this!

Chuck
 


tidmarshsmiths5

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Not sure about taking it apart to actually clean it, but when mine caught fire because a critter built a nest in there at some point (the resistor actually started the fire) I did the following:

  • Used a shop vac to vacuum out all the stuff I could get it to vac out
  • Then took a leaf blower and blew it out through the resistor hole and vacuumed more
  • I did take the fan out that goes into the firewall so I could get back in there and vac out the leaves, pine needles, acorns, rat dropping, etc. until I got it cleaned out.

    I was going to take the cover off and get to it that way but my brother convinced me to wait to do that because he said that when I decided to do that I might as well buy some new parts and do that at once.

    Don't know if that helps, but it's what I had to do...I got the smoke smell out after about 2 weeks with some febreeze and running the fan on high when I drove it.
 

chucky2

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Thanks for that info!

Yes, I did much the same thing. Had to take out my airbox (by pulling straight up after shooting WD-40 in the moldings in the bottom of the airbox...still broke a tab or two), then unhook my washer/rad overflow tanks and move them down a little, all of which allowed me to get the blower motor out.

Once the blower motor was out, I could see a little bit of the evaporator. The part that I could see was somewhat cleanish up higher and forward, but down in the lower corner, where the blower motor would blow the most, there was some mud like cake in the coils. Worse still, there was long pine needles, leaves, etc. forward in the evaporator box where it is basically impossible to see (I used a small mirror on an extending telescope ((like radio anteneaa)), with a flashlight shining in there at the same time - was pretty un-ideal, but, you do what you gotta do. Used the leaf blower but on suck mode, with the blower opening and firewall opening taped up enough where I could get some decent suction. I figure all in all, I got out about a small birds nest of material out.

Then I got some BG Frigi-Clean (not the Frigi-Fresh) and used a whole can of that foaming cleaner applied directly to the evaporator.

One thing to note is, there is no drain that I can see in my 2003. To me, it looks like the foam once it turned into a water state just leaked out the bottom of the two plastic halves of the evaporator box. I'd love to be able to see what is on the drivers side of the evaporator box, but, to me at least, short of breaking the system open, that is not possible to do with the engine in...and I'm not doing that, as my A/C is working fine.

As for smell, the heat and A/C smell much better. Clearly the swampish smell was coming from in there, so cleaning it out is good. If only Ford had made it so we could really clean out the evaporator.

Hope this helps someone down the road!

Chuck
 

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