Hello all. I have a friend with a 1999 Accord DX. She told me that when she turns the air on (there is A/C, but not used because the condensor needs to be replaced) to get fresh air in the car, it does not come out. I check this out myself. When you turn the air on high on any setting, you can hear the air, but very little is coming out. When the car is actually on, when you have the air on 4, it sounds like a jet engine. Very loud sound, but the blower sounds like it is working. I have changed the cabin air filter on this probably about two years ago. I went and took the filters out and they were gross!!!! Chopped up leaves, pine needles and bits of foam. The bits of foam have me though, because I have no clue where that is coming from. I vacuumed the area where the filter is. There is a air coming through that area, very strong. In fact, it helped me blow some of the crap out of there but running the air without the filter in. Made a damn mess in the car.

Little background on this vehicle. This past winter a tree fell on the windshield and hood of the car. The air filter casing and hose had to be replaced, but nothing else was replaced in that area, other than fixing the hood and the windshield. Could there have been more damage to the air system then once thought. It has just started making the noise over the past two weeks. No problem with heater or air after the accident. My other thought was this car is living in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. Possibly a mouse made a home in there somewhere. Maybe there is a nest in an air duct. Its the bits of foam that make me think this.

My big problem, is that I don't know where to look for damage. I was able to obviously get to the cabin air filter, but all of the ducts appear to be solid and tucked away in the upper dash. I am not a mechanic, but I do do some work on my own car, mostly oil/diff/transmission changes. If you guys have any idea of where I should be looking let me know.

Also, I did check out the regular air filter and that is clean. There is nothing in the air filter casing. I just have a feeling there is a clog somewhere in the air system, and I just don't have a clue where to start.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give with this.

Charlene

 

I would be hard for me to imagine that a mouse would be able to get a nest past the blower, but anything is possible.

There is a mode control that opens/closes flaps to route the air to the proper location. I think that the 98-02 are changed by a cable and aren't electronically controlled.

I would look to see if the cable still moves that part of the mode control.

 

"Chopped up leaves, pine needles and bits of foam" makes me thnk of a birds nest but the location makes no sense.

 

sounds like pac-rats to me,, i have seen it many times ,,,,,,they love that location,, Hell i even saw 3 live baby pac rats in a blower once ........trust me thay find a way to get in through the ducts, and God forbid one were to get stuck and die in the duct work Holy Cow ..you cannot breathe ...hope none of you have to experience that

,,make sure that the flop door is working properly and that is NOT on fresh air ,also you might want to make sure that it closes when you put mode on rec,,

 

I worked on a Prelude once with no heat and it turned out to be a nest around the heater core.

 

So....should I drop the blower and take a look inside it? Like I said the A/C does not work, so I won't have any issues there. The air flow is great right to where the filter is, but then it is very limited, and like I said on the 4 setting it sounds like a jet is taking off. Thank you for the input!!!!

 

Well...hopefully this picture uploads. It appears someone was living in the blower fan. After I took it out, cleaned it up, and replaced the cabin filters.....everything appears to be fine. Just wonder where the guest went. Thank you for all the replies!!!! I really appreciate it!!!!

Nice garden you were growing in there...

 

definitely pac-rats ..

 

It could have been a hamster thinking he was in a hamster wheel.

 

probably was the tree that feel on car, all the dead leaves, bird nests bugs etc..etc went pouring its way in that space between windshield and hood and gets sucked into blower. newer cars have the filter before the blower to prevent this.
if your car is always garaged then you have no worries but if you park outside, under trees or drive in dusty/dirty areas then never let to outside air in, too late for most of us non-filtered accords.