Just a reminder to anyone who's car collects leaves during fall, be sure to clean the leaves out of the heater ducts. I just had another heater fire, this time on my V8 coupe. It filled the car with smoke and burned a hole through the plastic heater box under the hood. I opened the hood and saw burning leaves shooting out near the spare tire. This is caused by leaves collecting against the resistor for the fan speed control. I'm not sure how they get down in there, but they should be cleaned out annually if your car sits outside under/near trees.

Anyone have any tips on getting rid of the buning leave smell?

Eeeeaaah! Scary. I thought the worst leaf problem was that annoying buzz when one gets caught in the blower fan.

Everybody knows how to get rid of bad smells in cars....pine tree air fresheners!!

Bryce
88 GT

Those d*** Fieros are allways catching on fire !!!!!

Find yourself a nice fresh deposit of doggy poo. Smoosh it around in side a rag then throw the rag under a seat. Guaranteed it will take care of the burnt leaf smell. Also makes a great theft deterrant. Seriously though. Maybe set a box of armor-hammer in the car for a few days. Then some freshner?

quote Originally posted by rockcrawl: Just a reminder to anyone who's car collects leaves during fall, be sure to clean the leaves out of the heater ducts. I just had another heater fire, this time on my V8 coupe. It filled the car with smoke and burned a hole through the plastic heater box under the hood. I opened the hood and saw burning leaves shooting out near the spare tire. This is caused by leaves collecting against the resistor for the fan speed control. I'm not sure how they get down in there, but they should be cleaned out annually if your car sits outside under/near trees. Anyone have any tips on getting rid of the buning leave smell?

Damn, that just happened to me friday 1/18/02. Resister? are you sure, my fire started in that box also, but as soon as I started the car... (fan was on though).
hmmm... heres my thread:
https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/017471.html

Thanks for the info, maybe I wont have to replace the blower afterall, just vacuum out the mess in the box...mine didn't melt I caught it in time.

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84se Silver 2m4
86se Silver 2m6

Hehe, I had the sparks shooting out the defroster too. I started the car and drove to the end of the block when I noticed the smoke. I turned the defroster on high to try to blow it out (dumb). In a matter of seconds I could not see my passenger. We bailed! I reached in and popped the hood. That's when I saw the burning leaves shooting out. I reached down to try to pat them out (dumb) and that's when I burned my hand on molten plastic. I had a fire extiguisher, but didn't want to use it and make a mess unless I had to. I just waited a few seconds and it burned out. I'm pretty sure it's caused by the resistor. It is a wirewound resistor that gets red hot when the heater is on any setting but high. I've had this happen in a few Fieros and in a Ford pickup, the blower motor always continued to work afterwards. This was by far the worst one.

I think I'm cracking up.I know I posted a reply once to this thread,but it's not here.One more time;try fresh coffee grinds.

I have this problem also . How do I get access to the resister area ??????????

The resistor is in the front compartment. small board screwed to the front of the heater box with 3-4 wires connected to it. I think it's in roughly the same place for both the AC and Non AC cars.

To prevent this takes a bit of work... Take off the wiper arms and the trim below the winshield.

Find the air inlet and cover it with some screen. make sure the screen is tight to the frame all the way around.

Good post & replies. I never gave it much thought; always thought the leaf fire hazard was those that collected in eng compartment. But, we have very few trees here that drop leaves. Thanks

Darn GM electrical ghosts!!! The other day I turned my car off and took the key out and finally noticed the heater fan was still on and blowing on high.

I can't believe I almost missed this!

Me: Um, Jon is it supposed to smoke like that?
You: Yeah, it's ok.. .

Two seconds later

You: Howard! Get the fire extinguisher!

LOL, the smoke smell isn't <i>that</i> bad.

quote Originally posted by Fleabitdog: Find yourself a nice fresh deposit of doggy poo. Smoosh it around in side a rag then throw the rag under a seat. Guaranteed it will take care of the burnt leaf smell. Also makes a great theft deterrant. ...?

Too funny...

After the fire ate the whole inside of my car, I rebuilt it,sprayed rustolum paint all over the place....no smoke odor anymore kind of smells new!