Hey all,

For the past months I noticed that my ac has been smelling like dirty rags. I've tried the those ac sprays and I even bought the product from Keepitkool.com. I've tried everything...including bleach to clean out the evaporator area but the smell keeps on coming back. Yesterday it hits me, and I realized that the strut bar is sitting on top of the ac piping that runs from the evaporator through the firewall to the engine bay. From this, I think the evaportor is being pushed down to touch the evaporator housing, and because of this the water forming on one side cannot flow under the evaporator to reach the other side and exit the drain.

This is only my hypothesis. I'm going to try taking my strut bar off to modify it so that it won't touch the ac piping. Do any of you think this could be the problem? Thanks

 

1) Move the brace that holds the A/C line like most of us on here have already done, or your going to cut through that line some day from rubbing on it.

2) Is the condensor drain line blocked, does any water drip out while your A/C is on?

3) The cleaning system you used, did you spray directly into and on the Condensor Coils? To access the condensor coils you have to either remove the fan assy or spray throught the resistor block hole. If you haven't throughly cleaned the condensor coils, and only sprayed into the vents, then there's where your problem smell comes from. You still have mold spors growing in the condensor. Most A/C smells are causd by this.

As far as your strut brace goes, just make sure it's not rubbing on anything please. That includes the A/C lines.

 

I have the procarparts.com strut bar and there is about 2.5 mm clearance between the strut bar bracket and the A/C pipe, even though from the top angle it looks like the bracket is touching the pipe. I stuck a piece of home-use A/C weatherproofing foam between the two (just in case) and I have no problems whatsoever with rubbing.


A couple of months ago my A/C started blowing fowl odors. It doesn't matter if I turn the ventilation to "fresh" and turn off the AC about 3 minutes before I shut the engine off with the windows rolled slightly down. Based on a recommendation from a friend, I sprayed some "Fabreeze" in the recirculate vents next to the rear windshield and set the ventilation to recirculate. The odor disappeared in 2 days. Now I follow up with a couple of sprays every month. Its springtime fresh in my car.