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84 dl wagon cabin air filter??


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So my 84 DL wagon had mice at one point, and I’ve cleaned out every duct and vent and blower motor, where I found nests and poop. But it still smells when I turn on the fan. Short of getting to the heater core, is there a cabin air filter somewhere I’m missing?? 

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They stopped making these models long before cabin air filters were invented. 
You have to remove the dash to get the heater box out, disassemble it, replace all the eaten off foam, clean every duct, the core, the A/C evaporator, etc. with bleach.  When you put it back together, put 1/4" hardware cloth over the 3 holes in the firewall that bring in fresh air.  Technically, you also have to clean those passages.  Been there, did this.  Took a week.   I HATE mice.

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It does take that long. We do them periodically on the 2008 to 2010 WRX's and STI's due to fatigue failure of the pedal mounting box spot welds. About a $1500 repair. And that's not even touching the heater core box. 

We have it on good authority that the assembly line starts with the heater core hanging from some fishing line and all subsequent parts are then bolted to it. 

GD

Edited by GeneralDisorder
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6 hours ago, GeneralDisorder said:

It does take that long. We do them periodically on the 2008 to 2010 WRX's and STI's due to fatigue failure of the pedal mounting box spot welds. About a $1500 repair. And that's not even touching the heater core box. 

We have it on good authority that the assembly line starts with the heater core hanging from some fishing line and all subsequent parts are then bolted to it. 

GD

Yeah, but you checked in in the MY EA81 forum here, not millennials. Funny you mention heater core start point. Australia had a poorly built locally made Leyland. An old mate's first job in Oz was on its assembly line, installing the heater cores.....

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GD, I don’t doubt the later model dash boards are more involved, I was talking about the MY dash since that’s what the vehicle in question is. My comment was regarding the older models. Not many Subi specialist shops would be well versed in removing dashboards from the old school Subaru.

I’ve had the pleasure of removing a Gen1 Liberty dashboard but we never reinstalled. In some areas they were a massive improvement over the MY and L series dashboards but on the flip side there were loads more connectors to sort out too. Miss one of those on reinstall could see you tearing hair later. 

The MY unit was clearly not designed to be removed with the windscreen in place. They rectified this in the models after the EA81. 

Cheers 

Bennie

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Angled driver gets those three bolts/screws up by the windshield.

Sort of amazed to see this thread. I don’t have any issue at all with gen one and also did gen two and first gen Legacy all with no issues as a hack user and abuser. 
 

Sorry , but to me those mentioned aren’t all that difficult. 
 

Until you split the heater box. Still not a horror show if you keep your mind to it and are orderly. 
 

I would run scared from a more contemporary Subaru dash for sure.

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14 hours ago, Ionstorm66 said:

It actually takes that long to correctly. It was not designed to be easy to remove.

OK OK

Maybe it took me an earlier five hours working out how to do it without what I was told was step #1 in the manual - remove windscreen.

My shirt cut is to leave centre panel controls in place and juggle them through their hole in the dash each way. Saves one cable adjust later. I wrote up a procedure list as I went as well.

My times are for dash pad swap, cracked out, sexy in

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