Removing coffee from the heater box, a miserable mission :-(

[74hct04]

I've been on a bit of a mission recently... It transpires that the previous owner of my vehicle must have knocked over a takeaway coffee over the dash top, mostly down the defroster vent (the little rectangular one which would point at a quarterlight window, if the car had one) and down the front of the dash. This resulted in a mouldy, sticky mess which I've had a lot of fun removing from the face vent and inside of the drivers knee 'kick plate' so far! But there's more... I realised it has gone right through the heater box and out of the driver's 'feet' vent assembly, just as I finished reassembling the car for the day!

The main problem (other than the health hazard - but thankfully I have an Autoglym sanitiser spray) is that the heater direction control keeps jamming up when ever it is moved away from face, to anything involving feet. (Initially I  though it was the Bowden cables from the control knob and lubicating the knob mechanism did nothing).

I've reserved two cans of Toyota "airco cleaner" at the dealership (PZ447-00PF0-05) as stripping the heater box isn't very practical and I need something that doesn't damage the foam facing of the flaps, nor the aluminium of the heater matrix or evaporator. I don't fancy removing the clutch pedal and master cylinder to save the blower from getting a dousing, but will try to pull it back a bit if I can... Wish me luck!

[Rhymes with Paris]

I do wish you luck.

Even worse if the coffee had milk and sugar in it.

Can't think of a way to get it sorted without dismantling everything affected.

But maybe all is not lost,as there are many on here with a lot of experience of solving difficult problems the easiest way.

Hopefully, one will be along later with a solution.(no pun intended)

Not criticising you, but didn't you notice the mess on the front of the dash before buying the car?

 

[PCM]

Oh dear...

Pipe cleaners or a vacuum cleaner?

[Roy124]

Sell the car on a hot or cold day depending 🤔 

[Cyker]

Hmm, who was it on here that had an endoscope? Maybe you could borrow it to get a brush/squirter/vac up in the guts.

Then again, maybe it'd be better for your sanity to not see what it looks like in there!  

[APS]

I've got an endoscope but I think it's cheaper/easier to just buy one on fleabay or Scamazon.

Short of ripping the whole dash out, I wonder if you could use a steam cleaner to dissolve any residue in the air ducting?

[74hct04]

Thank you very much for all the comments.

I've got the two cans and now need to know where the air intake of the heaterbox is if anyone knows please? (Although in reality, one of the cans is probably going to go down the path of the coffee).

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Even worse if the coffee had milk and sugar in it.

I'm fairly certain it did by the way it has separated out and gummed-up the foam gaskets. Empirically, the dark brown stuff is a tacky mould-free mess (coffee?) and the lighter stuff is a sticky, mouldy mess (milk and sugar?)

 

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Not criticising you, but didn't you notice the mess on the front of the dash before buying the car?

Friendly critisism is fine, but I'd like to explain...I bought the car sight-unseen at auction, based on a few things: the reputation of the seller (a Government-owned lot and one of a pair of iQs sold that day... There were 3 Gov't Corsas too - everything was 9-11 years old...), my confidence in my abilities to repair most reasonable faults, my knowlege of the 1KR-FE, a friend looking over the car for me, and a very good hammer price. I didn't go into this expecting an immaculate car, far from it... Unfortuantely, as you do, I've kind of fallen for the little thing and keep throwing small quantities of money at the dealership to improve it.
 

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I've got an endoscope but I think it's cheaper/easier to just buy one on fleabay or Scamazon.

Short of ripping the whole dash out, I wonder if you could use a steam cleaner to dissolve any residue in the air ducting?

I do have a boroscope and steam cleaning is actually a great idea, thank you. Hopefully, the adhesive backing of the foam will be able to withstand the heat and water...

If it comes down to it, I will bite the bullet, cut a flap in the side of the heater box and clean through that. I've should then be able to seal the box back up.


 

[Rhymes with Paris]

Ah, I see.

Well again, good luck with getting all the gunge out.

At least you have have a bit of leeway at auction price.

[Roy124]

2 minutes ago, 74hct04 said:

cut a flap in the side of the heater box and clean through that. I've should then be able to seal the box back up.

That is probably the best idea yet.  I don't know what is involved but I expect you will be able to get an effective repair.

I once managed to smash my SAAB headlight (low speed shunt on contaminated road). The glass lens was undamaged but the plastic case was broken.   You could buy lenses but not the case.   I used Isopon to repair the case and a G-clamp to secure it.  I sold the car some years later, clamp still I'm place and several MOT later.

I also repaired a cracked moped fuel tank with a shirt and araldite!

[74hct04]

Thank you RMP - I won't put the exact price online if you don't mind, if only to protect my privacy, but it was a fraction of what a 2013 MY would usually sell for. If nothing else, I get to know the insides of the car a bit better and, as an Engineer, I'm fascinated by that sort of thing. My father-in-law, on the other hand, is a retired mechanic and probably hates me! 😉

I've good reason to believe it's an ex-pool car (with the interior wear I expected) and was fleet serviced. Initial obeservations are that it's had new pads and discs and has clean oil but I am still trying to obtain the service history.

It has its faults - not least of all an apparent respray (Pearl white, urgh! Thanks to this forum, I know why I should have avoided that colour) and tiny rust spots coming through the paint. Hopefully contimination, probably not... But from a distance, looks lovely!

Some brilliant stories,thanks Roy124!

[flash22]

I take it you have the service manual, if not PM me

Easiest way into the heater box is by popping out the cabin filter

[Jikky]

Try zippo lighter fuel,magic stuff,it even removes silicone,aways have a can in the toolbox!!!

 

[74hct04]

Thanks. I have a can of Zippo fluid in the garage. I was looking for something that can remove silicone (hopefully silicone/siloxane based lubricants too?) so this is great to know, even if it's not right for the heater box dampers... I also make heavy use of Isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and brake cleaner for various automotive and electronics maintenance tasks 🙂.

Years ago, when I had my first, red, C1, I made the mistake of using 100% IPA to remove bird droppings. To my horror, I watched the blue roll turn red... Turns out that IPA can be used in paint-prep to strip lacquer and basecoat! Oops! (I still miss that car - it felt like the 1KR-FE in original EURO4 "tune" was more fun than EURO5 and I've driven a lot of C1/107/Aygos - albeit briefly in most cases).

 

[74hct04]

Update. The Toyota "Airco Cleaner" seems to have shifted some of it and I can now operate the airflow direction control without risking breaking something! ("Something" probably being a Bowden cable, or plastic gearing) *Touch wood*. I am grateful this not an IQ2/IQ3 with automatic A/C as it'd imagine the motorised actuator would be broken... It really did require that much  force to turn the selector before...

A few hints for anyone else in such a miserable position. This is not a guide and is completely at your own risk if you use it as one please:

• Take out the pollen filter, clip the lid back on and put down a load of newspaper. Have a lot of "blue roll" or kitchen roll to hand and some absorbent cloths that don't fall apart when saturated, too! Disconnect the Battery too, then wait 30 minutes, as there's a risk of setting off airbags or an electrical fire/explosion from the aerosol. Reconnect the knee airbag before reconnecting the Battery, if disturbed.
• Whilst I decided to forgo this step, removing just the driver and passenger kick plates (knee area plastic panels), it's probably worth taking of the dash top out as well so as to be able to properly clean out and dry the ducts outside of the car and direct the Airco Cleaner exactly where you need it. See this brilliant guide:

 

• With the "kick plates" out, there's a grille for the passenger's feet duct (right-hand drive car) and duct directing the air to the driver's feet, right above the pedals. Remove both of these (the driver's one actually comes away in several sections and each duct unclips into two halves - handy for cleaning). The ducts appear to be made of 15% or 20% talc-filled polypropylene (I can't remember which percentage but it's molded into the plastic). Find a compatible cleaning agent/solvent.
• Once the ducting is removed, you just-about have fingertip access to the so-called dampers ("flaps") which direct the airflow. These actually appear to be sort of triangular in cross-section, lumps of plastic with some sort of rubber (EPDM ? / NBR ?) air-tight seals on their tips. Spray in small quantities of your chosen cleaning substance here (but at your own risk! Don't blame me if you break something, "melt" the rubber wash out the grease or adhesives, destroy the car, activate Skynet, or worse... please) and mop up the resulting mess with some cloths. Keep moving the mechanism throughout this operation, being careful not to trap your cloth, fingers or damage the seals.
• Finally I decided to feed in the Airco cleaner about 50/50 via the coffee-afflicted vent (in retrospect probably a bad idea as it's duct appears to be in two, one-sleeved-inside-the-other, sections and the foam gasketing material between them is now likely to have leaked/be saturated with Airco Cleaner) and the centre vent. Follow the instructions to wait at least 30 minutes before operating anything electrical (lest you have a fire or explosion from the propellant gas) and heed the other precautions on the can and watch as the resulting mess drips out of the bottom of the car via the condensate drain tube.
  
  I then reinstalled the pollen filter and decided to go for a drive with the A/C and heating both on in an attempt to dry out the ducting and flush some clean condensate water through the drain to get rid of the, potentially-corrosive to the old subframe, soap... It's the next day and I repeated this procedure (driving with A/C and heater on, that is) and all seems well. *Touch wood* again. (It was night by this point...Who said the standard "HIR2" lights are bad? Try driving a MK1 C1/Aygo with it's "H4" 'candles' and reflector setup! (Caveat: The Aygo's reflectors may be better than the C1's - I've never driven an Aygo at night)...
  
  Oh, and personally, I chose to ignore Toyota's instructions to fire the Airco Cleaner into the air inlet. The recirculation inlet (above the passenger footwell on the left-hand side of the airbox, look for the grey-foam covered, "plate") was the best candidate but leads straight into the centre of the "squirrel cage" blower fan. In my view, not knowing it's ingress protection rating, this would have risked damage to the fan and definately soaked the pollen filter and/or its housing.
  
  Thanks again for all the suggestions and encouragement,
  R

[74hct04]

Two months have passed... There's still a little excess resistance from the air direction control, but generally only on the first operation of the day when the interior is warm (no longer the case in late October!). I plan to use the other can of cleaner next year at some point.

I can still smell the stuff on the heater matrix. The heater smells kind of like strawberry 'hookah' tobacco!!!

[flash22]

Drop an a/c bomb

https://bilthamber.com/product/air-con-bomb-citrus/

[74hct04]

Thank you. I've been meaning to try an a/c bomb for some time. Although it won't remove the stickyness, I am sure it will remove any remaining mildew smell. Nice to know that Bilt Hamber make one, too. Should be top quality!

[flash22]

Used a lot of their products over the years but not the A/C bomb, the Snow Foam works well and is cost-effective

[74hct04]

Thanks. I have a BH clay bar here which I hope to try out before too long.