Cancelled a date yesterday to play with my Hoe.
I've been apprehensive to install the filter retrofit because (1) It's a difficult location to work in and (2) I was afraid of what I might find and the subsequent snowball. Well, "it ain't gonna install itself" so I decided to just get it over with.
The target:
I used my EDC utility knife with a fresh blade to score the four straight parts until I could press the blade through and drag it to cut straight lines. Then, pushed up on the center a few times until the rectangle piece cracked loose on one end. I worked it up and down until the other end cracked loose then let it fall out:
Seeing the flakes of dirt fall out confirmed my suspicions of what I was getting in to. Flipping the removed piece over, the dried "mud" indicated that someone had used an evaporator coil cleaner at one time, which is what that port with the valve stem cap just above the screw boss is for:
Either the cleaner didn't really work or it was done long ago. I was worried that adding the filter would reduce the air flow. After seeing this, I doubt the filter would reduce the flow any more than what this build-up is doing. It was late so I stopped at this point to formulate a plan to clean it out without pushing anything deeper into the fins. I'm thinking a strong initial vacuuming followed by a gentle brushing with vacuum, then spray cleaner, more vacuuming, etc. would be best. If I knew how thick the coil was and what was on the other side, I wouldn't be above cutting an access slot on the other side to back-blow it with compressed air:
Until then, I'm just gonna install the lid from the filter retrofit kit so it's operable. I'll leave the HVAC cover in the second row floorboard as a nagging reminder to finish this project.
