Burning wood / leaves smell coming from HVAC vents

jeepins

jeepins

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Since putting quite a few miles back on my Jeep since paint job and all around remodel, quite a few times as soon as I get in and drive off from sitting overnight or leaving work there is a very strong odor of burning wood/leaves emanating from the vents and stronger if heat or just outside air is on vs AC. Eventually dissipates as i'm driving but very strong at the beginning.

Could it be leaves/debris inside my heater box? It's actually not a bad scent and I keep looking for smoke/fire while i'm driving but it goes away. I'm not really in the mood to pull my dash apart to clean out a few leaves if that's what is cooking but yea I also don't want an inflight fire either.

Just wondering if anyone else has had this happen?
 
haaa funny you ask.. no pretty much every time I get that smell I roll down my windows and stick my nose out like a dog wondering if it's coming from outside but no it's definitely through the vents.
 
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Have you looked under the cowl to see if there are potentially leaves or anything trapped in there? It might be in need of a good cleaning.
 
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X2. Debris gets in to the cowl and down to the heater element. You can pull it out and clean it. It is located behind and under the battery
 
Are you talking about the black plastic 'funnel' attached to the firewall that is notorious for collecting debris from the cowl? Yes I did clean that and it was full of crap. I'm thinking this may be a few loose items that ended up in the heater. Kind of hoping it just goes away every time I drive but so far no smoke in the cockpit.
 
Well I found where the smell was coming from. Pulled the blower motor resistor after noticing that burning smell came about when either the AC or Heat was turned on.. holy crap!!!
1580870093093.png


Then I used whatever means I possibly could to dig the rest of this mess out of the heater box.
1580870157791.png


Tossed the old one, installed the new one and all is good and back to normal. I might miss that nice woodsy fire smell a little bit. Did a good job of masking my farts.
1580870275667.png
 
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I read the thread title as "burning weed smell" I was very interested in seeing what was causing it. (Assumed long lost weed)

On a side note, good find, looks wicked.
 
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jeepins said:
Well I found where the smell was coming from. Pulled the blower motor resistor after noticing that burning smell came about when either the AC or Heat was turned on.. holy crap!!!
View attachment 138500

Then I used whatever means I possibly could to dig the rest of this mess out of the heater box.
View attachment 138501

Tossed the old one, installed the new one and all is good and back to normal. I might miss that nice woodsy fire smell a little bit. Did a good job of masking my farts.
View attachment 138506
Click to expand...


Good find!

You might be able to put the end of a shop vac in the opening where the resistor goes (after removing it) then blow some compressed air in the A/C vents, heater floor vents, etc. That might get some more of the junk out of there.
 
MountaineerTom said:
Good find!

You might be able to put the end of a shop vac in the opening where the resistor goes (after removing it) then blow some compressed air in the A/C vents, heater floor vents, etc. That might get some more of the junk out of there.
Click to expand...
Yea I did both! I have a reducer on my shopvac hose with a 1" dia flexible hose that I can bend pretty tight. Did that as much as I could. Bent a small wire into a hook, dug out a bunch with that. Then got the air hose and blew the rest around. Kinda did that back and forth until I wasn't getting anything else.

I think a lot of this was from camping in the fall over the years. In 2 days even with driving around the trails i'd be covered in leaves in the morning. Didn't think much about it since the vent cover has a screen on it. Pfffft yea.
 
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Good reminder that I need to clean mine out. Its rare, but every so often I get the same burning smell. When I turn the fan on high I get a lot of debris coming thru the vents (leaves)
 
jeepins said:
Yea I did both! I have a reducer on my shopvac hose with a 1" dia flexible hose that I can bend pretty tight. Did that as much as I could. Bent a small wire into a hook, dug out a bunch with that. Then got the air hose and blew the rest around. Kinda did that back and forth until I wasn't getting anything else.

I think a lot of this was from camping in the fall over the years. In 2 days even with driving around the trails i'd be covered in leaves in the morning. Didn't think much about it since the vent cover has a screen on it. Pfffft yea.
Click to expand...

It's crazy how things work their way into places like that.
 
My 97 wrangler caught on fire this morning. Probably from this same issue. Flames were behind the glove box and coming out of the fresh air vent. Had to pull over and borrow a fire extinguisher from a store to put it out. I hope it’s not totaled but I fear it is.
 
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