Is it possible to remove the top half of the evaporator case without moving or unhooking the evaporator itself? I removed the two 10mm bolts holding it to the firewall and the 7mm bolts holding the two halves together. It feels like it's wedged in there or hung up on something? Am I missing something?

Found a mouse nest in the blower motor so I want to make sure I clean out around the evaporator.

 

That's the hard way to work on it.

Remove THE WHOLE evap housing as a unit, then disassemble it.

In fact, if you take the rad out, the ENTIRE A/C system will lift out of the car as a unit INTACT, with the refrigerant undisturbed.

Most likely you will find when you do this, that the evap housing has crystallized and turned to dust where it's close to the exh man on the bottom. In fact most cars have a hole there. Repairing that makes A WORLD of difference to how well the entire system works... when it's not blowing the air out onto the motor.

 

Am I correct that the only way to remove the evap housing would be to disconnect the hard lines to it? Would there be enough wiggle room to get the housing off if I get the evaporator lose from the firewall? All I want to do is make sure there isn't any nesting material in there. The housing is solid without any holes. It's a low mile car. Don't want to lose the r12 in it either. That stuff is expensive these days!

 

No.

Depends on what you want to wiggle. After you just lift the whole thing up out of there, should be plenty of room for whatever you have in mind to "wiggle".

On 2nd thought, I was just at the store, and I saw some things walking (waddling?) around in there that probably couldn't "wiggle" in that space .... scratch that.

About 6 or 7 hardwares hold the housing on; about 4 or 5 of em are on the engine side of the firewall, the other 2 or 3 are in the interior, just under the edge of the carpet. The compressor unbolts from the engine. The condenser unbolts from in front of the rad, once the rad is gone. At that point, you can lift THE ENTIRE SYSTEM, INTACT, R-12 and all, right up out of there and set it on the ground next to the car where it's EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZY to work on.

If I was the betting kind, which I'm not, I'd bet your evap hsng is messed up next to the exh man, like everybody else's. I'm seriously doubting your car is so "special" that the laws of physics have been suspended in its vicinity. I could be wrong of course, but ... you'll see.