Hello,
another question on my 1972 914. Since it just got colder, I reinstalled the heat boxes and the hoses providing heat in the car. The problem is that now there is a nasty smell in the cabin as I drive, **even** with the heater lever closed. Could it be that old grease on the heater boxes gets heated up and smells? Would this be fixed by putting the heater boxes in a parts cleaner and giving them a good cleaning?
Thanks.
mice have died inside the longs, typical problem
Even though it’s probably the heat exchangers, I always run a vacuum cleaner hose up the longs. You’d be surprised what ends up there.
Whatever your smelling it's likely toxic. You may have a leak between the exhaust tubes and the heat exchangers. Remove and inspect them as it's not worth taking the risk with your health.
Mine was in the fresh air box. Not so fresh air!
First off, I removed the heater boxes and the hoses to the longs tubes. I also vacuumed the longs, nothing unexpected came out (just a few small rocks).
Couple of questions.
1) How often have people seen cracked exhaust pipes that leak into the heat exchangers? I have the stainless steel heat exchangers, and on the outside they look really good. Removing them to test is a pretty big job, I don't want to start it until everything else has been checked out.
2) How do you clean the fresh air box? I know getting it out and back in is a pain in the a**, is there a simpler way to do it?
To clarify, the smell I feel is that of heated or burning old oil, not mouse or other detritus. That's why I suspected oil greasy gunk on the heater boxes that could smell when warmed up.
To test, you plug up one end and pressure test or use a smoke machine.
To clean out the fresh air box, (carefully) remove the paper tube on the side and vacuum.
If you wipe your finger where the hot air exits, it it covered with grease? tie a rag on something and run it deeper into the heat exchangers. You can flush the interior of shell without removing the heat exchangers.
For new (or newish) owners here how best to access the longs to get a vacuum in there and do you need any special attachment to access everything?
Not sure if it applies but I had burning oil smell and actual smoke coming through my vents with the heaters on. I had very bad oil leaks onto and into the heat exchangers that once heated up made for much unpleasantness for the nose and eyes. Resealing the engine has taken care of this!
So just how do the mice get into the longs? How can I prevent that from happening. Thank you very much.
gg
Electronic mouse trap. They really work. No poisonous rodents for other animals to gnaw on. You just dump the dead ones in the garbage.
We once purchased a pristine nepal orange 75 2.0 for a great price, but later found out why: The car stunk to high hell! Figuring out immediately that it was a rotting rodent smell, we begun by removing the interior down to the shell, could find nothing. Then we vacuumed and blew out the heater tubes in the longitudinals, nothing! THEN we removed the gas tank and ventilation system (like in a previous post) NOTHING, then we removed the heat exchangers and muffler: Nothing. Then we removed the engine insulator pad: nothing. Now we were getting desperate so we removed the engine and moved it far away from the car, NOTHING The car still stunk! We were facing a bad reality: The smell was inside the body.
Removing the oval access plugs in the inside of the longitudinals and putting a nose to it, we located the smell to the right rear long, and faced the grim fact that we would have to cut this car open to get to the problem. We got a die grinder and cut a door out of the side and partial top of the long and lo and behold a rotting rats nest. After thoroughly steam cleaning and sanitizing, we rewelded the door and put the car back together....no more smell!
However that was not the end of the story, the car was cursed. Several years later the new owner was driving down the interstate on a hot day at a high rate of speed and an injector began to leak spraying gas into the hot engine compartment. The explosion blew the engine lid up, and by the time the guy pulled over to the side, the car was engulfed and burned to the ground even destroying the fuchs wheels. There was nothing left.
Ah -- rust or fire; maybe about 90% of causes of 914s going to Air-Cooled Heaven. Some are crashes, of course, but methinks mainly these two causes. Neighbor had a Pontiac Fiero - aptly named one day for the same reason, too.
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