Lesson learned, mice will get into anything when you leave
them an opportunity. I had the lower windshield panel off
of the car last winter, this year there was a foul smell
emanating from the a/c when I took the car out of storage.
I used a fiber optic viewer to take a peek into the air
inlets, it was obvious that they had built a nest on top of
the passenger side air inlet door, when I turned on the a/c,
the door opened and the nest deposited itself in the
passenger blower and made its way onto the face of the
evaporator.
There is nothing in my JDHT CD regarding removal of the
blowers or accessing the heater/evaporator matrix, and
nothing I could find in these and other forums. Seems as if
these parts are robust in the X300 which is fortunate as it
took me the better part of 6 hours to take it apart, removed
the offending nest material, clean everything with a mixture
of peroxide, baking soda and detergent, and put everything
back together.
I started by removing the knee bolster, glove box, air bag
door and the air bag. There is a very sharp metal air bag
enclosure that is removed next, with two modules and some
wire harness connectors attached. I removed the right dash
vent to enable removal of the duct that runs from it to the
matrix. This duct appears to have a yellow ‘‘sock’’ on it, I
presume to stop static electricity from zapping the air bag
that rests against it.
The outer blower cover can be removed by unscrewing a
handful of Phillips screws followed by the blower assembly.
Once it is out of the car, the blower housing can be split
in two and cleaned. My fan was completely jammed with
nesting material.
I removed the small duct running from the blower assembly to
the matrix, then you can easily see the evaporator.I cleaned
it carefully with a vacuum, followed by varsol, my peroxide
concoction and a thorough rinse. This is a good time to
ensure the drains are functioning, mine were good.
I took the drivers side apart, but did not remove the blower
as I could see no sign of a mess there. I did hook up the
drivers side blower fan to a motorcycle battery and used it
blow air from the drivers side across the evaporator and
into the passenger side foot well that was open from the
removal of the passenger side fan and ducting.
My car does not have a cabin filter, there was some leaves
and other debris on the face of the evaporator that I can’t
blame on the mice, but everything is nice and clean now.
There is a significant increase in airflow from my ducts
now, and no more urine smell.
That is all.
Dave–
david lockhart
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