So I been cleaning up my CRX. Besides normal cleaning I rebuilt the seats and bought new carpet. But when you turned on the car and ran the heater or AC the car still had a 'funk'. So I decided to pull the evaporator and blower motor and clean them out along with the air vents. Here is what I found:




And when I pulled apart the evaporator case it got worse:



As you can see the evaporator was actually about 1/2 blocked up with crud. After thoroughly cleaning all the 'funk' smell is gone and the AC works much better.

 

LOL!

That's GROSS!

Did you have to pull the evap from the car or were you able to get inside the black box while it was under the dash?

I installed A/C once and the previous owner apparently had a cat and smoked in the car.
Evap fins were all sticky with smoke tar and plugged up with cat hair.
NASTY.

 

You have to pull the evaporator from the car.

 

The last one I pulled out had a dried-up mouse carcass in it. Same car had a mouse nest on top of the headliner!

Yes, to clean it well you must remove it. Invest in a can of coil cleaning foam, it'll dissolve all that gunk in the fins.

 

Hello there,

My a/c has a terrible smell (usually when it first runs and when I shut it off), I'm hoping to clean it like you did. However, I have absolutely no experience with autos. Can someone give me instructions to clean out this, evaporator?

Thanks so much for your help!

 

Nobody can help me learn how to clean out my evaporator?

 

You need to remove the evaporator. Start off by getting a copy of the factory service manual online and reading up on how to do it. It gives you a step by step description on everything.