Kind of Scary Problem HELP!

not sure how to word this but here goes. for a week or so now I've been noticing a weird smell in my car (86 lxi hatch), I'm not sure how to explain it but when i smelled it at first it made me think of water, but now its moved on to smelling more like plastic burning or a short or something along the lines of that. I've been messing around to see if i could figure it out but all I've noticed is that it may go away when i turn the fan( inside the car) off, because when i do it kind of disappears but i turn it back on and after a few mins it comes back. i don't think its anything under the hood because if it was i would think it would be noticeable with the fan off or still be there right when i turn it back on. I'm leaning towards THINKING THAT THE FAN MOTOR IS SHORTING OUT OR SOMETHING.if anyone has any ideas or any recalls i should know about please let me know, I'm getting really paranoid because i don't want the car to catch on fire or something since i don't have an extinguisher ,and it also takes 3 or 4 tries to get the hood open anyway.

I had a problem like this, check under your car, mainly your exaust system and see if there is any plastic melted to it. Thats what happened to me, i hope your problem is nothing more serious than that. good luck.

ill check it right away, because this car is my daily driver

thanks

$10 extinguisher GET IT! even if you fix the smell that $10 can save you a new car. Everyone should have one,their cheap at walmart or anywhere

an absolute will do

I'm not sure on this but, I seem to remember there being an issue with a drain hose for the a/c that if it got plugged up would allow water to backup into the fan housing. I think if you search you should be able to find something on it or maybe someone that has had the issue might chime in.

in the 4 years ive had it the ac has been not working, so unused, but that is still something i will check on. thank you!

pull the fan and blower housing and look inside of it. the resistors that change the fan speed are inside of the housing in the air stream. this keeps them cool, leaves and garbage can get inside of the housing and would make a burning smell on the hot resistors. it's pretty easy to take out the housing and blower unit as one piece. if there was debris in there one of those resistors could also be touching the plastic in the housing. they are fragile and can be moved. they are bare wire. there is some kind of access door to pull out them as an assembly,but if you have crap in there you need to clean it out anyway.

i was told to do this, but i cant find the housing. on my truck it is under the hood but i dont see it there on the honda, would it be behind the glovebox?

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Originally Posted by 86lxihatchb

i was told to do this, but i cant find the housing. on my truck it is under the hood but i dont see it there on the honda, would it be behind the glovebox?

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yep pull the glovebox it's pretty easy it's right under the glovebox all the way up against the passenger side of the dash. when you put it back in put some screen or something over the opening where it sits against the underside of the cowl, after it's out you'll see what i mean.

ok thanks thats going to be the first thing i do when i get home tomorrow.

i always thought there should have been a recall on this,i know last time i pulled mine,had sucked up leaves and some of them were burned. these resistors are bare wire that gets hot like a toaster element. they are in there for the air to cool them. why honda didn't use a multi winding hvac fan, i will never know. instead some of the current goes through the windings to slow down the fan motor. all they had to do was put some kind of screen over the opening to keep out debris.

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Originally Posted by lostforawhile

i always thought there should have been a recall on this,i know last time i pulled mine,had sucked up leaves and some of them were burned. these resistors are bare wire that gets hot like a toaster element. they are in there for the air to cool them. why honda didn't use a multi winding hvac fan, i will never know. instead some of the current goes through the windings to slow down the fan motor. all they had to do was put some kind of screen over the opening to keep out debris.

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yeah my dad said they had the same problems with some older fords too, so ill get him to assist too. thanks again.

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Originally Posted by 86lxihatchb

and it also takes 3 or 4 tries to get the hood open anyway.

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For Gods sake, oil your hood latch!

the latch is fine, the release is broke

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Originally Posted by Demon1024

$10 extinguisher GET IT! even if you fix the smell that $10 can save you a new car. Everyone should have one,their cheap at walmart or anywhere

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i seen some on like the A pilar of some race cars....or at the ricer shows...but they do come in handy....when my power sterring hose blew it was leaking on the exhast...and it started a fire....right as we were pulling up to honda...my uncle ran and got a extinguisher to put it out. or else the dx would not be with me any more.

so that is what that smell is, burning leaves :bong: in the dash

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Originally Posted by MessyHonda

i seen some on like the A pilar of some race cars....or at the ricer shows...but they do come in handy....when my power sterring hose blew it was leaking on the exhast...and it started a fire....right as we were pulling up to honda...my uncle ran and got a extinguisher to put it out. or else the dx would not be with me any more.

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Same thing happened to me about 5 years ago...:wtf: That's crazy!

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Originally Posted by roodoo2

so that is what that smell is, burning leaves :bong: in the dash

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so the moral of this story is........don't hide your stash...... in your dash

heres some pics, its not in "bad" bad shape

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3.../untitled2.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...ntitled4-1.jpg

some damage in the back, and the stupid fart can

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...n/01010007.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...untitled-1.jpg

as for the topic, even with the fan off i still smell it, but only at certain times.

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Originally Posted by 86lxihatchb

heres some pics, its not in "bad" bad shape

<a href="http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e316/koticspaceman/?action=view&current=untitled2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e316/koticspaceman/untitled2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e316/koticspaceman/?action=view&current=untitled4-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e316/koticspaceman/untitled4-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

a little damage in the back though and a fart cannon

<a href="http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e316/koticspaceman/?action=view&current=01010007.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e316/koticspaceman/01010007.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s42.photobucket.com/albums/e316/koticspaceman/?action=view&current=untitled-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e316/koticspaceman/untitled-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

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you did your pics wrong you need to copy the links where it says img codes and paste those

now?

they work :)