Heat smells bad

[F14CRAZY]

Howdy. I searched, but to no avail.

When I have the heater on in my '92 XL, it smells bad. I can't figure out exactly what it smells like, and none of my passengers can either. It doesn't smell like gas or a fire though. It is NOT a coolant leak, for I put in a new heater core a couple months ago, and I pulled the cover off of the bottom of it last night and no leaks. And there coolant resevoir isn't going down.

I once read about opening up the air conditioning housing (the one with shiny insulation, by the firewall, beside the blower motor) because it gets full of leaves and stuff. How can I do that? Can I open it without letting the R12 out? It looks self explanatory to me but I figured it's better to ask first.

Is there any other place I can check? I'll check the blower motor housing again but I don't think there's anything in there, since I had the motor out when I replaced the heater core (and the motor resistor at the same time actually). A few months ago I did have a dead mouse in the blower motor housing of my Limited and it made a mess of some insulation inside and tore up the fan blades of the motor.

Thank you.

 

[F14CRAZY]

Well I did it anyway. I removed the intake and the wheel well baffle plastic. It's a job I wouldn't wish on anyone. I've got it mostly back together and just stopping in the house for lunch right now. I blew it out with the air compressor and got a lot of dust out of it. The previous owner(s) was a smoker, so it was pretty dirty. Nothing dead in it though.

I'll let you know how it smells when I get it back together later.

 

[F14CRAZY]

Well it seems something else in my truck smells bad. It was about 3 hours to dismantle the blasted HVAC system and didn't make any difference.

 

[ExplorerDMB]

Sorry to hear about your trouble. Hopefully everything will work itself out. I have heard of like mice and animals crawling in to duct-work and then making a nest and even dieing in there. I believe one person sold their vehicle, because even after they got rid of the nest - it was just there forever. I guess, in some sense, you are lucky. Again, hope everything works out.

-Drew

 

[F14CRAZY]

I forgot about the possibility of dead mice being in the ductwork in the dash. That ain't gonna be fun at all to dismantle.

The truck seems to smell fine when parked. I don't believe in air fresheners, but I have vacuumed the carpet and seats and all very well and wiped down all surfaces, so there's nothing lingering. I did spray undercoating compound inside the right side rear cargo area (I haven't put the plastic back yet) for sound deadening. I have done the same in door panels before, and it would smell like tar for about a week but always go away. It's been about a month now. It's hard to tell where the smell is coming from or what it is, but I'm going to get some Kilz and spray over the undercoating just to be sure.

As I said, I once did have a dead mouse and a mess of insulation in the blower housing of my Limited, but the XL here in question was fine. I indeed did dismantle the air conditioner (evaporator?) housing and the blower motor housing a blew it out with the compressor, but just got dust and soot. It didn't make a real difference.