Ok, I bought my 93' Ram from a guy who drove around with his huge Husky dog. I cleaned the interior up with baking soda, freebreeze, aerosol lysol, etc, etc. I was able to get rid of most of the smell of dog in the cab. If I turn on the A/C the A/C blows cold, but blows nasty "wet dog" smell into the cab!!! I want to break out the barf bag. I love the A/C and the cold air it provides, but I don't use it because of the horrible smell. Is there a way to get rid of this smell permanently? (little green Christmas tree air fresheners is not gonna cut it!) Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated. Firstgenfanatic

 

The only thing I can think of is to take it all apart, and clean all surfaces. The ducts arent that hard to get out (except for the defrost vents). You will need to clean out your evaporator box anyway, so this is a good reason to do it. There is a thread with a link to a ramcharger site to clean out the evap box.

Daniel

 

Auto parts stores sell HVAC cleaner spray, spray it in the cowl with the fan on high. Lysol works OK too.

 

I am not knowledgable enough to move a photo from my gallery to a thread so click on my screen name and view my pictures. You will see where I cut out a piece of the duct at the evaporater coil. If there is a tree within a hundred miles you will find leaves, dust bunnies and possibly in your case, dog hair piled up in front of the evap coil. When the coil gets wet I am sure it stinks. It wasn't my original idea and there is a post somewhere on here that gives more detail than that.

 

There is a writeup on cleaning debris out of the evap in the sticky. You are probably going to need more than that. You will have a bunch of dog hair woven through the evap coil. When the evap gets cold, its sweats and releases more of the smell.

The "proper "way to fix it would be to replace the evap and any insulation in the box it resides in. That might be more than you are willing to do, but if you can at least remove it to clean it, you can soak the evap coil in bleach and it will remove the smell.

If you access the coil, like in the sticky, and can get compressed air and a vacuum hose in there, you can release alot of the hair and let it get sucked out. Just don't use the AC for a while before you do that, so everything will be dry inside. If you can find a way to get the compressed air to go the opposite direction of the normal airflow it will work alot better.

 

Back in my old steel trapping days, we used "masking scents" to cover up odors.

Try a few drops of skunk musk and you will be amazed at how quick the dog smell goes away.

If that don't work, remove the seat, all the carpet, and pad, down to the bare floor-boards.

Remove the glove-box.

Do the "hole in the cover" access hole and leave it open.

Stick the water-hose in the closest duct to the evaporator and back-flush everything.

Don't do this if you didn't remove the carpet and pad, as it will never dry.

 

Dog smell or mildew, they are both bad. If it hasn't been done then you need to clean the trash from the evaporator. Mine had the hole cut for cleaning when I bought the truck, but I thought it looked bad so I went to the upullit and got a new box, which I need to now cut a hole in. The trash had caused the evaporator to corrode (yes aluminum will corrode). Research the thread in here before cutting because you can easily cut the evaporator. I am sure Dodge sells a deodorizer/mildew killer that can be sprayed in the vents that might help. After you cut the hole to clean the box, you can get non acidic evaporator cleaner at home depot. If you use it you can gently rinse the evaporator with water or air. Make sure your drain line for the evaporator isn't plugged. Good Luck.

 

Thanks for all the good info so far. The process of cleaning the evap canister sounds like a royal pain. I'll read the sticky on here.

 

Really nice lookin EVAP ducting cover. I checked out the article in the "sticky" section. Looks like it's actually easy to do. I have a Dremel tool and a large scrap piece of polished diamond plate in the garage. Looks like all a guy has to do is get inside the plastic duct work and scoop out the dirt, leaves, dog hair,etc. I'm sure mine is full of junk.

 

Earlier today I got around to tackling my smelly A/C problem. I made a really nice looking "access panel" and used a dremel with small cutting wheel to make an access hole in front of the EVAP Coil. Whoah Nelly!!!! I found some pretty interesting stuff piled in there! Check out my attached pic...........

 

Now that's a nice collection

 

That looks like mice doin' that.

 

When I first saw this mess I thought it was where a mouse had made a nest. I did not find any evidence of mice droppings at all. Most of the stuff I found was dog hair, lint, dust *****, pine needles, dirt, sun flower seeds, and little pieces of foam. I cleaned everything out really good and sprayed disinfectant cleaner all around. I also sprayed lysol on the various exiting ducts. Hopefully this cures the bad smell when my A/C is operating.

 

Good job, I think you have found the source!

 

Looks like half the dog was in the heater box!