Clogged A/C - need advice please

Hi,

I have a 1993 nissan sentra. The car had been sitting for about 1 year without being started, etc. Earlier in the year, I had it checked out and made the necessary repairs to get it back on the road. Everything was running fine - the A/C was great. Well, this past summer I decided to move the knob on the A/C from the setting that re-circulates the air within the car to the other setting which I guess takes more of the air from outside. Sorry - I am car ignorant and don't know the exact function. I hope you know which I am talking of.

Anyway, I don't know why I decided to adjust this, but I just had to move the switch for some reason!! Well, all of a sudden, leaves and small debris came out of the vents in the car. This quickly subsided, but ever since the A/C makes a humming noise which is hardly noticeable at the lower settings, but quite annoying at the highest.

At the time we could not afford to get it fixed, and we lived with it in the summer, only using the A/C minimally because we were afraid of damaging it. It did cool the air nicely even though the noise was annoying! Now that it's winter, we need the heat in the car (current temp outside is about 10 degrees F!!!). And we have been using it as it does not appear to be harming the vehicle - although I suspect we could be doing some damage. The heat works but the thing is that ever since I clogged it, the air flow seems about 1/2 of what it used to be (both with A/C or heat). Putting it on level 2 seems more like the old level 1.

My questions are - is there anything I myself can do to correct this problem. Is there something under the dash within the car I can unscrew and access the ventilation system?

I assume this would be difficult, so if there is anyone familiar with this kind of stuff, I would greatly appreciate your advice on what I might be looking at when I bring this to a repair shop. Is this something that could require new parts or would it be more like a labor intensive issue needing someone to spend time just cleaning it out.

Thank you in advance....

Xander. Hi cleo, Take the blower motor off ond eithor use a blow gun or vacuum cleaner with a long extension and get rid of the debris that is in there. Bill Thanks Bill. Could you quickly explain how to take the blower motor off? Where is this located?

If you know where this info. is on the web, please let me know and I can read it there.

Thank you very much for replying... Unfortunately it likely won't do you any good to go in through the blower to get the debris.

The debris is trapped on the outside of the a/c evaporator core, which would make it inaccessible from the blower compartment.

You'll need to go in through the air inlet (which is usually under that grate that is under and in front of the windshield wipers).

This is where the debris was sucked in to the system from. IF you can get a hose in there from a vacuum cleaner, then it should get the stuff out of there.

It is likely that rodents made a nest right in the air inlet (common). Then all of that gets sucked in to the system when air is drawn in from the outside.

If you are going to try to go in from the blower side, then you'll have to use a blower to blow the stuff back out the air inlet (which should be fun to do providing you have a strong enough blower to blow the debris up and out of there.) Hi cleo, I was thinking along the lines that gm vehicles mount most blower motors in the engine compartment and push air through the cores. If the motor is mounted under the dash and draws air throught the core then my idea won't work. Sorry I don't know its location but if you don't see it in the engine compartment on the firewall then it is most likely behind the glovebox area. Bill Thank you both for your help!! Doesn't sound like too big of a problem...Car Repair Talk's forum.