how to clean dog vomit out of your door control panel

[bodhi_tree777]

As posted in another thread, my new pup just had surgery and got a little sick on the ride home. As soon as we parked she lunged over my onto my wife's lap and threw up all over the door handle, controls, etc. Here's an impromptu DIY on disassembling the control panel and cleaning it out. *warning* dog yuck pictures below, look away if you have a weak stomach.step one: removed the controls (easy procedure, found tips elsewhere on the form, and then I proceeded to break one of the L-shaped tabs. They're a bit flimsy).step two: observation. it pooled up under the switches. That brown gunk, that's not supposed to be there step three, remove plastic cover. Three phillips screws later, you get this:here's the L-shaped tab I broke. There are two (note the gloves, it's handy being a tattoo artist sometimes)re-assembled, after lots of q-tips, paper towels and canned air:good as new:and, finally, the perpetrator:I tried to disassemble the black box part (only three screws), but all the switches are connected and I wasn't sure how to remove them. I left it alone, re-installed (after cleaning barf out of inside the door panel and on the seat) and everything works just fine. Slight wobble due to the broken clip, but no biggie. Wheeee

[kevera]

After reading this It brought back memories.Brutus used to get car sick all the time.And he looked very similar to your little one.It used to start off as a drip from his mouth and gradually turned to drooling,and then the barfing.Glad we had vinyl seats in our old Volare.

[ColonelPanic]

eeeewwww!Good thing you wore gloves! Sucks that you broke the clip but that plastic is megacheap there so it's hard to remove without breaking.

[BlueCrush]

Ummm..yeah....that's gross....

[KNINE]

Welcome to doggie parenthood. Cute pooch, by the way.

[lovemyraffe]

That was pretty nasty.

[bodhi_tree777]

Well, I figured my first DIY ought to be memorable

[breezd]

Wow... I'm not quite sure memorable is the word that I'm thinking of about this...That plastic clip broke on mine (randomly) as well. Nice DIY though (considering...)

[hskater26]

haha gross

[Amtron]

(removed) I love the title!

[vibolista]

I'm not a Veterinarian, but it looks like your pooch chews his food very thoroughly! Memorable is an understatement. Good job, not too pleasant, but necessary. Done with surgical precision.

[bodhi_tree777]

It's worth noting that some of you may want to tackle this even if your dog or whomever hasn't thrown up on it. You wouldn't believe the amount of finger gunk that builds up on these switches.

[ned23]

Quote, originally posted by bodhi_tree777 »It's worth noting that some of you may want to tackle this even if your dog or whomever hasn't thrown up on it. You wouldn't believe the amount of finger gunk that builds up on these switches. You need to stop operating them after picking up the drive-through at Burger King...

[vibolista]

Tried picking up the the drive-through at Burger King. No finger gunk, but my back is really sore.

[bodhi_tree777]

Just had to bump this, as a follow-up. Noticed that lately, when I would press on any of the buttons on this panel, all of the buttons would move up and down. I took the whole assembly apart again (breaking off the other flimsy L-shaped bracket in the process) and found that the thin, flimsy plastic housing for one of the screws (to mount the black switch box to the silver plastic) had broken off. A bit of gorilla glue solved that for now, but what a stupid design. Then again, perhaps the vomit weakened the plastic and shortened its' life. I don't imagine the engineers at NUMMI test for that.

[A Psycho Martyr]

Quote, originally posted by bodhi_tree777 »Then again, perhaps the vomit weakened the plastic and shortened its' life. I don't imagine the engineers at NUMMI test for that. lulz...