RE: Milano composter

["Brian Shorey" <bshorey@domain.elided>]

>Seems the composter in my Milano is not operating at peak efficiency.
>Not sure if the mixture of icy water to leaves is incorrect or if the
>mulcher speed is wrong.  At any rate before I haul my ever widening butt
>under the dash to investigate anyone got any tips on cleaning out the
>compost heap..... err    A/C  evap housing/blower fan?

first, do it immediately, if not sooner.  do *not* use the heater if there
are leaves in the system, there is an exposed resistor in the ducting,
positioned exactly where the leaves collect, that makes an excellent fire
source.  i have a friend that lost a milano that way, and i almost lost my
first verde that way too.

you can do the entire job from the drivers side footwell.  it's been a
while, so details are fuzzy, but basically you remove the cover from the
heater box on the drivers side, vacuum things out, then pull out the motor
and get everything inside the box.  it's pretty self explanatory once you
start poking around.

there was a technical article somewhere that dealt with designing some
screening for the cowl vents to prevent leaves from getting into the heater,
you might go searching for that if you want to take some preventative
measures.  apparently the factory designed cowl vents are not, in fact,
perfect, so some modification in the way of screening might be a good idea
if you park underneath a lot of trees.

later,

bs

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