97 Tercel cabin/pollen filter? was: So what was the smell?

Well T/Owner, it has been interesting following your plight. I was beginning to think you had serious personal issues with heater cores. Perhaps one fell on you as a child!! ;)

It's too bad you don't know of a car guy (or gal) who can sit in and experience the fumes. Anyone who has been around cars for any length of time can usually smell, hear and see things less experienced people cannot. Exhaust smells different from raw fuel, which smells different from burning plastic, burning oil, burning rubber, coolant, hot paint etc. And I am embarrassed to say they taste different as well. (Unintentional of course!)

How many kms on the motor since the changeover? I'm still thinking that something on that motor is burning. There is just too much of a coincidence between the new engine and the odor. Did they paint the block? If they didn't use good engine paint it will just soften and stink when it heats up. Is the paint tacky when hot?

And you are probably right in determining that it is coming in from the ventilation system. If there is a ventilation filter, it probably won't eliminate fumes. More like a vacuum cleaner filter, you can still smell the bag contents, just don't get the dust.

I can't remember what your original mechanic said. I suppose that now they just want you to go away?

Gordo

"Tercel Owner" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@Tercel.com...

I did have serious issues with it, in the sense that the problem is quite severe, and the heater core was the only thing that I knew of which was not eliminated as a potential cause. But I have to say, the stinging feeling on the back of the throat /did/ seem to lighten up with the bypassing of the coolant around the heater core, even though the terrible coughing is still provoked. There is likely more than one problem...There have already been so many problems, each whittled away. The valve seals, which reduced the oil loss by about 35%; the leaking transmission oil, which made my hair and clothes smell like oil. I have do a pressure test on the core to assess its contribution, but the it isn't the sole remaining (potential) contributor.

Yes, it was confusing at the start because there were so many contributors. Burnt oil smell, burnt rubber smell, odd unfamiliar smells....they have been whittled away.

The car-savvy passengers that have smelled it are evenly split on its /effects/, as are the noncar people. Some people don't think it's so bad (but next time, they do), and some people just cannot stand it. They only get to sample it for a short while. The adverse effects get really bad when you get subjected to it continuously. After prolonged exposure, it doesn't seem to take much to set off the terrible coughing. At the beginning, it took much exposure to get coughing, even though I could detect the contaminant early on. I was trying to ignore it.

As for identifying the smell, I'd say that most of them didn't get exposed to all the different smells that occur (burnt oil, engine shampoo, etc.), but most of them /did/ get the chemical smell attributed to the engine shampoo. They were sure it wasn't coolant, and so (as I said), the testing of the core was just a shot in the dark, in the absence of any other way to find the problem. I had already gotten rid of the engine shampoo smell by cleaning it at a detailing outlet, but the aggravating fumes persisted. The only thing I could think of was misting of coolant, so light as to make the smell hard to discern, and not leave noticable film on the windshield. After the above test, the fact that the core doesn't seem to be the main contributor is good because it's consistent with the lack of inidcators of a head gasket problem. In other words, everything makes sense.

2825km (just over 1000miles) since the change-over. According to the mechanic, there was no preservative film on the used engine. He also cleaned it with some chemicals, but this was some time /after/ the change-over, in the course of troubleshooting. The chemical was worse than the problem, but I got a detailing place to clean away the chemicals.

Could you clarify what you meant by "paint the block"? I assume you don't mean using colored paint, as I never saw an engine painted like that before.

I was thinking the filter might have gotten contaminated e.g. some debris, powder, or chemcial entered the external vents in the shop. I wanted to see if there /was/ a filter before subjecting myself to the above test. Since the ventilation doesn't cause much problem with the engine off, I'm assuming that either there is no filter, or there is but that isn't the problem.

Yes. I was advised to sell the car because the engine is good. He is not acknowledging my oil readings, showing a steady decline (at a rate which exceeds his own threshold of acceptability), and is making readings that differ drastically from my own. When asked to show me such readings, we found the readings in-between his and mine, and it was attributed to non-flat ground outside the shop. In his calculation of oil loss per km, he also ignored a top-off point midway between the two dates he is using. I'm concerned that he is trying to bury the problem. He fixed a transmission leak while we were troubleshooting an engine oil leak, and declared the original oil problem solved. I found out afterward from colleagues that they are not the same. He hasn't provided documentation of what exactly was wrong and what was fixed (I have asked). I would like to maintain the same trust that I assumed over the years, but recent events suggest that it might not be appropriate. I hesitate to state it more strongly than that because there is always room for prematurely jumping to conclusions. It's not the greatest situation, though.

T.E.

In case anyone searches for this topic in the future, the answer is No, a 97 Tercel does not have a filter for the cabin ventilation. From the local Toyota dealer/rep. This seems to corroborate with the above.

T.O.