Nope, several screws and a few clips (on the housing) that you could never access without pulling the unit.
I was afraid of that. Ah well!
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Nope, several screws and a few clips (on the housing) that you could never access without pulling the unit.
I was afraid of that. Ah well!
Local Toyota dealership had many of these in stock for $31. Instructions are to spray it up through the A/C condensation drain tube in the engine bay. I found that behind a heat shield by the downpipes, one screw and pull it back. No drilling needed inside the truck or fittings/caps. Mold smell gone and replaced with soapy heaven.
Youtube instructions here: Genuine Toyota A/C Refresher Kit - YouTube
I'm getting ready to do this soon, I see the drain location on the firewall you mention but there is another beneath the vehicle, and I see most tutorials explain to spray into this bottom drain line. It definitely seems better to spray in from the upper drain as you did so it washes down over everything we want to clean, but do these two drains come from the same area? What I'm getting at is should we use both to fully clean the evaporator or is that redundant?
If you really want to clean the evaporator I'd recommend pulling it out. If its never been pulled I wager its full of crap and trying to spray clean from the drain tube will be an effort of frustration.
When I pulled mine it was full of leaves, pine needles, gunk, you name it.... Also a good opportunity to pull the blower and clean it as well.
I’m not having any issues besides a slightly musty smell so didn’t want to go that deep into it as I’d have to discharge the AC to remove it, correct?
Correct.
Thought I might wait until it needed work before I did that.
Really only four reasons why you would want/need to remove the evaporator:
1. Case is leaking.
2. TXV needs to be replaced.
3. Evaporator is clogged with debris (external) and not working well.
4. Evaporator has corroded at the bottom and is leaking.
Can I reach in and clean out the gunk by hand with it in place?
No. (maybe yes...if you are antman.)
Read on to learn what I did and you may agree with FlintKnapper that it's better to pull the core out.
@CloudCity
"Cabin filters" ?? more info on that please. As far as I know none of the 80s had factory cabin filters and I've not seen an easy to retrofit option out there yet. If you have one you need to share photos and info.
Snoop around with a borescope if you can (they are like $20 for a usb one on amazon) as there isn't going to be a way to tell how clean things are near the back (passenger side) of the box otherwise. As long as the debris is organic you should be able to get things pretty clean with core cleaner and repeated flushing/cleaning.
Good luck with it,
Well holy hell... apparently I did a search on this topic not realizing this was the 80-series board; I have a 100-series (LX 470 specifically) and on those the Toyota often doesn't have the cabin filters but the LX does, so my apologies for the confusion, and further, for the misdirection by landing here in the first place. Man I wonder how much of what we've been talking about still applies? The general theory does certainly so I absolutely appreciate your help. I still day dream about an 80 so hopefully one day you will see me back here with VALID questions. lol I'm calling it a night.
Well holy hell... apparently I did a search on this topic not realizing this was the 80-series board; I have a 100-series (LX 470 specifically) and on those the Toyota often doesn't have the cabin filters but the LX does, so my apologies for the confusion, and further, for the misdirection by landing here in the first place. Man I wonder how much of what we've been talking about still applies? The general theory does certainly so I absolutely appreciate your help. I still day dream about an 80 so hopefully one day you will see me back here with VALID questions. lol I'm calling it a night.