Turbopickup24

So since its been in the hundreds in sacramento. The AC has been smelling like mildew, dust, dirt, and grim thats bilt up in the evaporator. Over the year. First i thought the drain. Was pluged but it wasn't so i went to the local Auto parts store and they has nothing i was looking for but my work (Home Depot) had this stuff for cleaning house hold AC coils for $5.98 i think works great i drilled a small hole in the corner and sprayed it in there and let it sit couple times and turning the fan on low to push it throw the fins. I have to say its the best $6 i have ever spent. Its also lemon fragrance its also water based and self rinsing. Which makes it super easy to use.

Turbopickup24

RAD4Runner

Thanks for sharing, but did you also drop your blower fan and clean it? That gathers lots of dust on its fins and is easy to clean once you have it off the truck.

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

Would also suggest pulling your windshield cowl and cleaning all of the mess in there as it works its way down to the blower and over to the condenser.

Turbopickup24

I dont usually have it on outside air but ill take a look at it today is there any special way to take it off?

Turbopickup24

No i didnt pull the fan it didnt look to bad but if i have some extra time i might do it just so its done.

RAD4Runner

Agree with Terry. See his picture here.

The cowl cover has long openings that would let in even wide but thin leaves / pine needles.

To make matters worse, the driver's side opening enclosed in in yellow here does not have a screen.

Terrys87

iTrader: (1)

Thanks RAD, That saved me from having to dig thru one of my threads trying to find pics for it. I need to make some more reference points for me to find them a little quicker.

Turbopickup24... Lift the hood and on the firewall, there will either be screws or tabs that you can just lift up to remove the cowl. If it is screws, it takes a short stubby screw driver to get the screws. I cut a stubby screw driver down even more to get access to the screws. You could always remove the hood, but I avoid that to save getting the body lines all squared up again.

If you want to go about half way in my 86 4runner build thread in the link below, I show how to go about and getting the entire ventilation system cleaned. Most would be surprised at how dirty the system is.

You can remove the Evaporator, Blower Assembly, and the Cowl and get the whole system cleaned minus the vent pipes from the center to the drivers side of the truck. It most likely will be dirtyyyy!!!

RAD4Runner

Most welcome, Terry.

Often, I'd just go to my own thread and "Search This Thread" for the keywords (i.e., "cowl")

Recommended, inexpensive tool for three inboard screws on cowl cover is the offset screwdriver.


The outboard ones are snap-in pins that often break. If they break no big deal, anyway, but I detest those fasteners with a passion.

Jake28296

One guy had that and it was 3 dead mice in the vents