Mayor111

I bought my 88 35th Anniversary Edition about 3 weeks ago and although the previous owner kept it in amazing shape, it was in a garage that didn't have a concrete floor - and I think mice might have gotten in the car cause it has a musty / urine smell - especially while driving with the targa off.

I have sprayed Febreeze everywhere - I have put dryer sheets all over the interior for days and days (windows closed and opened) - I even bought Bamboo Charcoal bags and placed them in the car...and the car still has that odor.

I've looked under the seats, in the rear cargo trays, under the floor mats, in the engine compartment...everywhere...and I can't find the source of the odor.

QUESTIONS:
1) Is there a cabin air filter in an 88? If so, Im assuming its location details is in the user manual
2) Could the odor come from the air filter?
3) Are there any compartments in the rear cargo area or under the rear carpet that I should look in/under?

Any help or advice would be most appreciated!!

Cruisinfanatic

You need to go through the car.
Pull the dash pad so you can look down in back of dash. Mice love their nests in there
Pull the radio. Mice love it back there
Check in back of halo sides

fake

This is what you need to further deter the mice from coming back and bring back a decent smell to your vet! Mouse Majic is the brand repels mice Bonide is the mfg. As far as clearing the inital smell you have to use Mcguires air bomb found at pep boys or on line. Mice will follow that car to your door step, i had a clutch disc that mice wound the hood insulation around the small areas and had to replace the total Disc preasure plate and flywheel !

vette196

spray some lysol in your cowl and run the A/C & heat, make sure its not set to recirculate

arbee

You need to find their nest and remove/clean the area. No amount of masking scent is going to chase the smell away. It might make it more bearable to drive but the smell is still there. You are just driving around with nice smelling mouse ****.

vette196

it will make it smell better, although masked

If it does, maybe it will help narrow the nest location/dead mouse

cdm747

To answer your questions 2 & 3 there is no cabin air filter in the car and there are two compartments under the carpet behind the seats. A deep one on the passenger side and a shallow one on the driver side that has the abs system in it. If they were closed all the time I don't think there is any way mice could get in either but you need to check.

skyhawk50

I pulled the radio out of my 93 and found a mouse nest the size of a basketball behind the dash. Also found a few petrified corpses and bones.

Use gloves and a mask, that stuff is deadly.

85WHITEZ51

Is the smell worse with the AC on? I ask because I had a car that had mold growing on the evaporator coil that smelled musky and could be argued to have a urine type smell to it as well. Since our cars don't have cabin air filters the evaporator can become a massive mess and grow all kinds of stuff in the right environments. It's not uncommon for them to look like the one in the following link:

https://tech.corvettecentral.com/201...vice-bulletin/

Could still be a mouse nest but could also be this. If a mouse made a house out of your car you will generally see pellets to as well as some chewing on things. Not always but that's not uncommon with an infestation.

95LT1ZF

These older GM cars hold smells pretty well. The carpet and seat materials make it difficult to get anything out. Once you've gone through the dash, i would suggest pulling the seats and the carpet. Clean the carpets and let them sit out in the hot sun for a few days. I had to do this to my IROC years ago and it yielded good results. Don;t get me wrong. It is a hug PITA, but it worked.

Mayor111

The smell does not come from the AC...on or off the smell is the same and I barely use the AC.

hcbph

You need to find the source of the smell. Something that might help is a bore scope like you'd check the inside of an engine cylinder with. You can get that into a lot of places that you otherwise would have to tear the car apart to examine. Here's an idea applicable in other situations - ozone generator. I've used them many times when dealing with furniture that was in house fires. A smell gets into the furniture that was 'present' and pungent. At times even shellacing a piece of furniture would not seal in the smell so alternate methods had to be found. Tenting the furniture piece and putting in an ozone generator eliminated the smell over time. Never tried it on mouse smell but if the source is gone it's worth a try IMO.
Good luck.

65Z01

I cannot see how a mouse can get inside the cabin as it is rather well sealed. Are there holes in the firewall that large??

arbee

A mouse can get into a bank safe if it decides to. What do you mean by "that large"? Dime size is all that is needed.

mtwoolford

first things first. On the engine side of the firewall, on the passenger side, under the HVAC plenum is a soft black rubber tube, say 4 inches long and an inch in diameter. This is the drain for the A/C evaporator plenum. These get clogged up, and with nowhere for condensate off the evaporator to drain to, and out, the accumulated condensate, plus all kinds of organic crap start decomposing and causing odors that never seem to go away. The drain hose just pulls off so cleaning it is easy. It happened on mine, so I suspect that it may have happened on your car too.

mtwoolford

"Dime size"? that's like a barn door to a mouse. All the "bones", except for the skull, on a mouse are flexible like rubber and if it can get it's head through a hole, the rest will squeeze through.

Mayor111

I've sent you a PM!! Any chance you might have a picture of this hose I can yank off and check?

Red86Z51

Pull off the lower rh front fender and it will be right in front of you...you can't miss it. It looks like this:

Red86Z51

As for the smell, I would suggest looking in back as well. Remove the rear interior trim panel that covers the hatch solenoid and take a sniff around in there. Mice that get into these cars LOVE the sound deadening foam GM installed back there...it makes for nice nesting material and it makes a cozy home for them.

johnnymo63

Try putting a cat or small dog in the car. See where they go to. Most likely, straight to whatever smells bad.