Hey everyone! I had some idiot cut out in front of me one night and needless to say, thank god for ABS. Well, I didn't hit the guy, but I did have a little accident in my truck. I just got a fruit slushie (which was in the front cup holder) and when I slammed on the brakes, the slushie went all over the front dash. So, now I have a slight smell of strawberry coming out of the vents, sticky climate control ***** and a couple sticky radio buttons. I know I can pop off the trim around all these components to get to the vents for cleaning, but how do I clean up the ***** and buttons? Any ideas? Thanks!

Rick

 

I'm not saying this will work, nor will I say that it won't cause more harm, but if it happened to my truck this is what I would do.

I'd get my wet/dry vac out. A supply of distilled water. A clean spray bottle.

Remove the negative cable from the battery to kill all the electrical systems in the truck.

Fill the bottle with distilled water and carefully spray the affected area a squirt at a time and immediately suck up the water with the vac. I wouldn't let the water have a chance to drip down so far into any area that's beyond the suction of the vac. Keep doing it until it doesn't smell like strawberry.

If that fails, then you'll have to disassemble the dash.

Make sure everything is dry before you hook the battery up again.

Distilled water is actually non-conductive until other things dissove into it. Don't use bottled/filtered water because it still has minerals that can leave a residue and can cause things to short out.

I know distilled water works because we've used it to rescue equipment that got dunked in salt water and keyboards that got soaked in various beverages.

[This message has been edited by Dennis (edited 03-25-2001).]