Activated charcoal (activated carbon)

Ok guys, just wanted to post put my results here.

My 83 has a combo of just old car smell, and gas (from a seeping carb that will be rebuilt soon.) It isn't horrible, but it's enough that once I get to work (25 min drive) I can smell it on my clothes and stuff, so I figured I'd start trying to do something about it. I started reading a lot online and came across some folks raving about activated charcoal (activated carbon.) I looked around, and the local parts store sells small air fresheners with the stuff for around 5 bux. I'm usually not a total tightwad, but that seemed like a lot to me for this teeny amount of charcoal in a fancy package, so I started looking around for cheaper places. Anyway, Pet's Mart (or any aquarium store) sells the stuff for use in aquariums, and for $3, you can get a 3-pack of mesh baggies full of the stuff (easily 6x the volume as the auto-parts store one, for less $.) At Pets mart, they had a lot of choices, but the one I got was the Fluval brand. You can actually get it a lot cheaper if you buy in larger volumes and bag it yourself in something permeable. (I did it this way, because it was already in nice mesh baggies.)

So I picked up a box and threw all of the baggies in my car on Friday night. On Sunday, I opened the door and took a big whiff... (usually, the smell was pretty strong at that point after being closed up) Nada!!! The smell was GONE! I drove around for a 1/2 hour or so, and you could catch whiffs of it occasionally, and it smelled a bit afterwards (must be in the cushions/carpet a bit and got stirred up) but again, this morning it smelled great!

So anyway, that stuff does an awesome job of dealing with odor! Now I just need to freshen up the carb to cut down the smell from the seeping gaskets, seeping valve covers and check the exhaust for leaks... then do a thorough cleaning of the carpet and seats to gt it out and it should be good!