I might smoke....but my Explorer shouldn't

[scottswierenga]

Ok, so a few days ago I went to drive the Ex....cold morning....cold engine.
I started it, put it in gear, and drove away, the vent & temp of the Ex had been on Defrost with full Heat, the radio was on and tunes were playing, and my daughter was ready for her last Saturday morning of Volleyball.
About a block later I noticed the smell of a wood fire....cold night....neighborhood fireplaces a-blaze....leaves on the ground, trees getting naked; no second thought as I enjoyed the smell of a cold fall morning in the city.
About a half a block later I noticed something, a billow of white smoke blowing up onto the windshield from the dash defrost vent.
It had a smell, Electrical? Plastic? Squirrel Fur? Rubber? Ferral Neighborhood Cat? Something else?!
It smelled like I had a little wood fire going in there!!!
I immediately pulled to the sidewalk, hopped out, opened the hood expecting the worst...................and NOTHING!!
No smoke or flame under the hood, no leaves, no sticks, no logs, no wood-pellets, no squirrels or cats, no nothing.
I scratch my head, close the hood, and hop back in.
The smoke had stopped, I had found no working fire, so I continued to drive away after having rolled the windows down to air the cabin out; hoping all the time (and for the remainder of the drive thereafter), that I wouldn't loose my truck to a fire.
Nothing ever happened, so I guess I'm ok.

Weirdest vehicle experience EVER!!!
Any ideas???

 

[Blacksheep Josh]

I'm going to take a guess and say your heater core might have a leak? Here's what I'm thinking...

The engine woudl have to be warm for this to happen, and thus hot air coming from the heater. But if the heater core has a leak in it, or around the fittings perhaps (trickles down to the heater core still) perhaps the heat from the heater core is causing the coolant to evaporate, giving you this white smoke and odd/sweet smell.

That's my theory, and the heater core "shroud/cover" can be removed easily enough to check for this.

I'm thinking either that, or the resistor on the blower motor maybe?

 

[boggs1227]

i have to go with what josh said and say heater system/s malfunction.if coolant were leaking onto a header then you would get a sweet smell in the air but if the resistor thats located on the side of the heater box then you would most def geta plastic / pc board burnt smell (once you smell plastic pc board burn you won't forget the smell) .

 

[TedJ]

Take out the blower motor and resistor pack (passenger side of the firewall, the blower motor is obvious, the resistor pack is a white thing with a wiring connector attached to it near the blower) and look for things that don't belong in there and damage to the resistor pack or anything stuck in the fan.

You probably either roasted the resistor pack due to a bad or jammed blower motor, random failure, or a bad wiring connection somewhere (look for discolored plastic in the connectors), or there was something like leaves etc in there that caught fire on the hot resistor pack.

It's not too much work to remove the blower motor and resistor pack so definitely take a look and see what is going on in there. Does the blower still work right?

 

[ifergusson]

Last fall I noticed smoke coming from my vents and it turned out to be some dry leaves were next to my blower motor resistor and started burning.I was lucky the truck didn't catch on fire.It is my understanding though that the blower motor resistor is only used when the switch is on a setting other than high so you may have another problem.

 

[ChadLloyd]

Same here - I had leaves get caught up in the blower motor on my '94 Ranger and pass into the cooling chamber (where the resistor pack is). The resistor pack caught the leaves on fire and it burned a hole through the housing. White smoke filled the cab (smelled like a fireplace....) and I pulled over to the side of the road to find a small flame coming from the area just next to the resistor pack. I put the flame out with a cup of water (that I luckily had in the cab). Anyways, I've blown out the system with compressed air and vacuumed out the debris as much as possible. The thermal fuse on the resistor block burned out though, so the blower fan will only run on high. That's the next thing I have to replace I guess...

 

[scottswierenga]

Well it smoked out once more for my friend who has been borrowing the X; then she said it stopped working all together. I had the chance to look at it a little more and just as you guys have said, it works on HIGH only. Looks like it's time for another resistor, are they readily attained parts through the stores?

 

[shaggymane]

burning leaves

Had that happen too. Started smelling something burning when the heater was on but it didn't smell electrical. Took a while for the smell to register. Thought paper at first but no..........that's not it. Then it came to me smells like burning leaves.
In between those thoughts heavy smoke came pouring out of the vents.

I got lucky i guess, no damage. Freaks a person out though. Thought my truck was going up in flames.

 

[patdttr225]

Yes, it is usually just leaves packed in around the resistor and they start burning and hopefully go out. I put covers around the wiper arm exit holes to keep leaves from getting down in there again.

Smoke coming out of the dash vents is really shocking when it happens!

Pat

 

[astaroth]

Question

How do the leaves get into the blower motor?

 

[scottswierenga]

The leaf bits get in there through the small holes in the Wiper Cowl between the hood and windshield.

 

[gmanpaint]

Had that happen too. Started smelling something burning when the heater was on but it didn't smell electrical. Took a while for the smell to register. Thought paper at first but no..........that's not it. Then it came to me smells like burning leaves.
In between those thoughts heavy smoke came pouring out of the vents.

I got lucky i guess, no damage. Freaks a person out though. Thought my truck was going up in flames.

LOL! I had this exact same scenario happen this morning. Freaked me out completely! Drove me insane looking for a fire and couldn't even see remnants of a fire anywhere!

I was afraid to start it again thinking it was going to go up in a thunderball of fire. The stink is still there and I have to get it out as it drives me nuts.

Hopefully it was just some leaves and the resistor pack is still good.

 

[butlereddie]

smoke coming from the engine

I have 93 ford explorer and i changed the water pump and the radiator. when i went for a test drive the engine started to smoke.. what do i do

 

[KEN's Exploder]

http://www.explorerforum.com/photopost/data//3914/medium/IMG_0532.jpg

http://www.explorerforum.com/photopost/data//3914/medium/IMG_0534.jpg

Photo of debris in resistors that started to burn when I turned on the fan. Pile of debris removed from AC housing and fan blower housing. Thanks to this and several other posts I knew what it was and cleaned it immediately.