Dropped something down a vent- help

So my wife was trying to help by putting an air freshener that clips to the vent. Somehow she pushed the clip that holds the air freshener to the vent past the vent and it disappeared. I checked if by chance it went down to the cabin filter but it didn’t. All controls work no noise or rattle was noticed. This is the vent location. Am I ok to leave it or will this cause issues ? Thanks for the help.

 

I fought this all summer and almost lost my $&@? due to the rattling, same vent and same scenario with the air freshener. . It won’t hurt anything, I tried the cabin filter, I took out the blower motor two times. Tried to vacuum it out, finally closed all vents except the one, got the shop vac ready, turned the ac to full blast and the small plastic piece shot out and hit me in the forehead. I have never been so mad and excited at the same time!

 

You might be able to access the plumbing if you remove the long panel to the right. I had this panel off when I installed my anytime back up camera and remembered it being easy.

If not, don't worry about it. If it does make it to the blower motor, (think it's on the clean side if the filter...) make sure it doesn't foul the squirrel cage and stop the motor.

 

Can you go into detail on how it came out? Did you use the shop vac? Were you ever able to find it visually?

 

spit out some coffee on this read.

 

If he had an eye on his forehead I guess you could say he found it visually.

 

I always run the ac on face and feet, it rattled like crazy, when I finally just put the blower on face and closed all the other vents, it had enough pressure to blow it out on its own. I had the shop vac to add pressure but didn’t end up needing. Yes I found the piece and it hasn’t rattled since. The vent exit has a honeycomb shape, it blew right out. Rode with noise for over a year and never made it to the cabin filter or hamster wheel, but the rattle was so loud I thought it was in the hamster wheel so that’s why I removed it.
It would go a week with no rattle then I would hit a bump and it would fire back up.

 

^ this, those panels to the right just pull off.


There is a honey comb type thing behind the vent.



You could try something like this and stick it down there and try to grab what fell in if it will fit.
Bendable Flexible Magnetic Pickup Tool, 24'' Four Claw Grabber Tool, Accurate Pick Up In Narrow Space for Engine Bay/Home Sink/Drain/Earring/Keys/Metal Objects (Magnetic orientation) - Amazon.com






If your OCD goes crazy and you feel the need to pull the silver surround, all this has to come out to get that surround piece out.
Maybe not so much the console parts tho..

 

Do you have to take the dash apart to remove the vent and honeycomb piece?

 

I just tried this and it it blows it up to the back of the honeycomb and bounces around but not through it. If the honeycomb wasn’t there it would probably blow out

 

As bad as the picture looks @1lowlife provided. It's not horrible.

Edit: I would try the grabber tool or something similar before I tore everything apart.

 

Sounds dumb, but if it’s blowing up to the honey comb, maybe a screwdriver with some tape wrapped backwards on it, maybe you could “catch” it..

 

FYI it would never make it to the cabin filter from the vent hole unless it went through the heat/ac core then through the fan. In which it would still be on the bottom of the filter and not the top. The cabin filter is on the inlet side of things and the vent hole is the outlet side

I had a 22 shell in mine for a while before it rattled the right way to get blown out

 

I think so, it attaches with screws from the back from what I remember..

 

Thanks for the help guys. Once I got home from running errands I closed all my vents including the rear with the exception of the one with the clip that fell down inside. I then turned the HVAC on high. At first it didn’t rattle or bounce around so I tapped the dash and it started bouncing around again. I started to cut strips of cardboard to fit in between the honeycomb grid but before I could put any in the grid, it stopped bouncing around again. I tapped the dash again but I still couldn’t hear it bouncing around. Then I looked inside the vent and it was just sitting there waiting for me to remove it.
I am so glad it was this easy and didn’t require removing the dash. I truly appreciate all the help and advice.
This is the piece that caused all this trouble. About 1” long.

 

Awesome.
Hopefully some else will be helped by your thread..

 

Dropped a pen down a defroster vent in a 1987 F150 during the winter. We were heading to Houston to goose hunt and it kept the blend door open so no heat. Fortunately back then accessing the blend door and heater core was easy.

 

I did almost the same thing in my 85, except it was two joints, sooner or later they made their way out the foot vents while my parents borrowed the truck…..

 

I've been known to empty the three hole punch at work and dump the dots in a cowl vent. Maybe I'm the reason the cabin filter was invented.

 

I'm just curious, not judging or trying to be smart, but are you going to keep using those? I like air fresheners too, but have avoided the vent style like that because I had to tear apart a RAV4 dash due to my daughter letting something get in there that made its way to the blend doors and jammed one (actually it broke it). What a nightmare that was.

 

Diabolical

 

Nope, I’m not going through that again.

 

A small diameter clear hose/tubing can always be added to a vac. For items that are attracted to a magnet, a cylindrical magnet can be placed snugly in the end of a clear tubing to create a fishing tool of substantial length.

 

Lesson learned. Don't let your wife touch the truck.

 

I could give my wife a glass mallet and an anvil. She'd find a way to break the anvil.

 

I thought this was ironic timing; this video just dropped today and is appropriate for this thread. This is very similar to what I went through on the Rav4 I mentioned. I DIY'd it and had the entire dash pulled out/apart. Replacing the unit that had all the servos and blend doors was around $1500 and that was 9-10 years ago, but I rigged up a fix that was less than optimal but waaaay less expensive. It was several days of frustrating work since I'm not a trained professional like these guys. No one was more amazed than I that it worked after I got it back together and there were not rattles or squeeks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWNBgfXgp0Q