I bought an 87 manual from a guy off of eBay. He told be he was selling it because his 87 burned up. I was shocked and asked him if he had all the recall work done to the car. This is his response:

"It wasn't the engine fire. The interior burned up. I believe I know why. I had experienced some smoke entering the interior of the car. The cause was leaf debris accumulating in the heater duct adjacent to the heater fan switch resistor. The resistor is a metal coil that protrudes into the heater duct. You can remove the resistor from inside the trunk compartment. I vacuumed the debris out. A year later, my daughter was driving the car home and got some smoke entering the car. It stopped; she continued. Next thing she knew she saw glowing debris blowing into the interior on the passenger side--probably from the heater duct. She stopped car on side of highway and it went up in flame. She's fine. If you park your car outside under trees that shed leaves, you might check for debris from time to time in the heater duct by removing the resistor and doing a vacuum job."

Sounds like good advise. Maybe we can save a few other Fieros from the same fate.

Roy

Good idea. Can you describe the area you're talking about a little better?

Did that car belong to someone on the forum? I think that I remember hearing that story before.

Thanks for the warning. I take it the debris actually touches the resistors and catches fire. Now you have me thinking about building a little "tent" (of metal screen wire) around the resistors, to prevent direct contact. That, plus the occasional vacuum cleaning, would probably make me feel better.

Except - I do love the smell of burning leaves in the fall... I'll have to think about it !

What area are we talking about???

Wow, I think that's happened to me, not the car burning, but the smoking. I thought it was the blower motor preparing to fail. I believe I will be performing some mods during my rebuild. I'm thinkin' something along the lines of HD heat-sinked resistor mounted external of the ducting -anyone know the ohms value off'n the top of their head?

BTW, I've had problems twice with the A/C 'quitting' on my wife's Bonneville. In both cases it was due to ductwork clogged by a mouse's nest -just parked a few days in a garage. I mention this just to point out that y'all might want to be on the lookout for not just leaves . . .

Where is this resistor? I can only see it on the schematics not in the car? Like Monkeyman asked:

"Good idea. Can you describe the area you're talking about a little better?

I saw a car in the salvage yard with a burned up dash and heater box, This would explain that. Thanks to anyone who can show us.
Terry

I just recently had my fan motor out of the front heater assembly in an 84. The whole cavity was filled with feathers, leaves and grass, probably some critter living there over the winter. Well anyway I noticed that some of it was burned. This burned material was right where the coil resitor sets. I'm lucky that one didn't go in smoke. I definately would give it a look over especially if you park it over the winter.

Eric

Okay - to locate the resistor unit, open the front compartment lid. The resistor unit is bolted to the heater duct, held in place by two (7mm wrench?) little screws.

Before you remove it, what you see looks kind of like a baseball-diamond-shaped flat piece of phenolic (tan color?). The thing has a connector with about 4 wires coming out of it, one of which is pretty heavy wire - a heavy purple wire, if I'm not mistaken.

I think (this is from memory) it's roughly in the center of the car, and it's in the heater / air duct, so it's close to the windshield side of the front compartment.

When you remove it from the duct and pull it out (no need to remove connector if ignition is turned off), it looks like three coils of wires sticking out of the phenolic. Like it's wearing curlers, or maybe having a really bad hair day.

Enough over-explaining. When you see it, you'll know it. Hope this helps !

in the center on the back wall in front compartment. on opposite side of air cond accumulator (the big, 12 long silver tank looking thing) from the blower motor. has 4 wires (blue/green/purple/tan). Prob wouldnt be a bad idea once a year in the spring to just pull out the blower motor too to clean duct. A drop of oil on blower would make it last a lot longer too. If you do have a squeeling blower now, u can drill a 1/32 inch hole in the bearing area (the little bump in center) to get some oil in, not over a drop or 2

Thanx. It makes a little more sense now. I'll have to check that in the next few days. (Of course, I don't need the heater now and the A/C doesn't work, but better to be safe than sorry.)

Thanks for the great tip. My Fiero is garaged for 9-12 months out of the year, you can bet I'll be checking this out.

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Why not lift the screen in front of the windshoeld and install some finer screen under it to prevent junk getting in there in the first place?

fiberglass window screen would work. It's UV stable and will last for years.

Excellent idea, Ogre! Sounds a lot better than my fix... less work and longer-lasting, too . Plus, there may be health benefits -who wants to breathe air wafting over a mouse's nest ?

I was looking at mine today. It already has fine, window like, screen under the hex holes. Maybe not all years had it? Good thing it's there..... mine would be full of tree junk.