Something crawled into my 1996 F-150 Air Conditioner System and died. It stinks. When I turn on the blower, the blades rap against it. Winter's about on us and I need some help!

I need to clean it out and fix it so that it can't happen again.

The sound appears to come from under the glove box.

I'm told I need to remove the dash to get to it. Where can I learn how to do that?

Did this ever happen to you?

Any other suggestions?

 

That hasnt happened to me yet, but damn man that sucks!

 

Happened to me ... in my ex wifes Lumina, the smell for me came mostly from the vent near the door on the drivers side, I removed the registers on that vent, the turned up the fan ... didn't do much, closed the other 3 vents and the pressure built .. but not enough, wiggled a coathanger wire down there and noticed some fuzz fly out .... then the rat was launched over my shoulder into the back seat. All this was after spraying at least a whole can of Lysol in the vents. Upon inspection I found there was NO WAY the critter could have gotten in there from outside the car and concluded it got in when the ex left the front door open and opened the back to retrieve our daughter who was in a child seat at the time.

You will probably see the only way to keep it from happening again, don't leave your windows open or door open for too long, especailly when it is cool out and the heat seeking rats can find their way to the heater core. Which bring me to ... since your smell is mostly on the passenger side, you might be able to remove the heater core panel and see the critter, this should be able to be accessed through your glove box. Not knowing the 96 or F350 I can't say for sure.

 

i agree that the heater core will have to come out.

wear a mask and keep a plastic bag close to throw up in.

 

If you can hear fan hitting it take fan out first its in engine by and clean out. Held on with 3-4 screws. If no luck Then move inside. Good luck

 

Yeah, I would definitely go in through the blower motor first. It's easy to get in there and see what the cage is rapping against. I like quicklook2's input as well, keep a plastic bag nearby either to catch a technicolor yawn or to wrap up whatever little beastie is in there.

Good luck an let us know what you find!

Cheers!

Mike

 

Yeah, Good Luck!!!

 

had on get into the hater box on my 90 and made his way into the glove box. must have killed the critter because he was flatened behind the glove box but he made a mess in the hater box had to take fan motor out and shove the shop vac in to clean out the fluffy nest he made with the insulation from the front of the cab. and yes it stunk badly. love these two month projects that turn into years. truck is still in garage for the winter and will have to clean out another mouse nest in spring im betting.

 

This thread is hilarious to a certain extent.







Seriously, pull the blower motor and look in there first. I would recommend wearing gloves if you have to remove the carcass.......

 

Thanks to everybody's advice, I tried this first. And it worked!

When I got the blower out, I found the head, shoulders, and front legs of a field mouse wedged tightly between adjacent bars in the squirrel cage. The head was on the inside of the cage and the shoulders and front legs were on the outside.

It took a bit of prying to work the mouse-parts loose. He must have worked pretty hard to get himself caught in there and I must have finished him off by turning on the blower.

I found the larger part of his body on a shelf off to the right of the hole where the blower mounts -- up against a heat exchanger (heater core?). On that same shelf was a pile of dirt and ground-up leaves.

I vacuumed, washed, and sterlized everything as well as I could from the blower mounting hole. Then I replaced the blower, reconnected the wires and fired it up. All's right with the world again! (Except, of course, for that one screw that ran off to Screw Heaven somewhere under the engine block.)

(Also, I have a confession to make: I quite using the truck soon after the mouse died (about six weeks ago). By today, the mouse was well dessicated and the horrible smell was all-but-gone. So, the job was not near so unpleasent as it could have been.)

If you've been into this yourself, then you know how little you can reach from the blower mounting hole. To say, "The AC system isn't designed for sanitary maintenance," is to make the understatement of the century. I wonder just how much disease is contracted from automotive AC systems (especially mousey ones). I also wonder how long it will be before the Surgeon General calls for automakers to redesign their AC systems to facilitate easy and frequent sanitization.

Well, SilverSport, quicklook2, lostin90s, and MRL123, you saved my bacon. Maybe I'll be able to go the rest of my life without ever having to learn how to pull a dashboard.

Thanks a million!

McFrog

 

Pulling a Dashboard is fun .... even more fun when you have a 5.5 x 6.5 foot box to store the parts in ..... I did it in my 85 Golf and 73 Stang ... the Golf didn't have much room to keep all the parts in the car for the 2 day job.

Glad you got it out, small mice can get in there easy, don't know how that near 1 lb rat got in the Lumina .... heater core in center under dash on that. .... when I wrote before, I forgot you said the blower was hitting on it, sounds like he made a few trips in there and had a nest set up.

My last car was a 95 Sportage, I didn't drive it much at all for the first year or so after getting the Dub ... much more fun. A mouse or rat came into that one through either the Shifter hole or the transfer case selector hole ... probably lived there a while. Found items that were im my glovebox, like Gum, Glucose Tablet wrappers and the like under my console. Found the bottom of a mardi gras cup that must have had some drink residue ... cup was shredded. I think what drove him away was the bottle of RainX that he ate. Glad I have a garage now for at least one of my cars.

As for sanitary .... VW has that with the pollen filter between the blower and cabin.

 

I've had this happen a couple of times. I live in a rural area with a million field mice. I finally think I have the problem solved. My last mouse vs. blower fan decaputation took me over the limit. Having fur fly out of your vents is no fun. The little *******s made a nest inside the blower blade, cutting my blower output to less than half. The *******s also broke two of my motor resistors (was left with speeds 4 and 5).

My solution: I took scraps of old window screen and covered my fresh air intake grates with it. I was amazed the little fu**ers could squeeze past the grates. Since the window screen was plastic, and the grates were plastic, I used Gorilla glue. I put a light bulb over each location over night to help the glue set since it was cool at night. I used metal washers to hold the sreen down flat onto the grates to make good contact (metal won't adhere to the plastic over night).

Also, 'spring scented' bar soap helps deter rodents from infiltrating your vehicle. Put some bars under your seats and in your glove box.

Good luck!