Okay, so this morning i took my truck on its maiden voyage to work. I just completly rebuilt the motor and trans. I drove it around this weekend with no problems. I bought the truck a couple months ago and it had been sitting awhile.

I am 3/4 of the way to work and it starts raining. I roll my windows up. I turn the climate control over to "vent" to get some fresh air....about 1 minute later I am rolling like Cheech and Chong. Smoke filled the cabin and I had to stick my head out the window to get her pulled over.

I immediatley though of the radio I installed last night. But it wasn't electrical. I thought about fuel lines rupturing but after popping the hood there was no fire under the hood.

Then I thought about how the smoke smelled. It smelled like cigarettes or burning leaves. I quickly realized what happened.

I turned the vent on and the heater core began recieving hot coolant. There was debris or a rats nest or something in there that I didn't see before and the heat from the heater core caused it to start smoldering.

So after a few minutes it stops smoking. I pull the heater core cover off the inside half of the heater box and I cannot really see any debris there. So it must be on the other side.

I checked behind the panel on the kick panel. It was full of decayed leaves and a few small acorns or some kind of nut.

So now I need to pull the entire ac/heater box out and clean things up .

 

Pull the blower motor out, and vacuum out the area around it. Near the blower, there is an electrical plug on the housing, that is the blower resister. That thing gets rather warm on any blower speed other than high. I bet that's what started the leaves to smoldering.

 

There was an area on the heater box where the resistor in screwed on that looked like it may have been too hot, it looks sort of burned...but I cannot tell if it is burned or if it is grease on there. That sounds like a more likely scenario Rogue. I did pull the blower motor while on the side of the road and reached into the area and felt the blower motor resistor area. There was debris that I pulled out with my hands. I will do a more thourough cleaning later on. Thanks for the advice!

Do you know this from experience Rogue?

 

Not from personal first hand expereince, but I've seen many in person, and heard about many more on this board.......
My 95 B2300 has suffered the famous heater box fire......

 

The '79 Ford I had smoked the cab up on me one day. That was fun.

 

Yeah, parking under, or near, shade trees may seem like a smart thing to do, but it can come back to haunt you.

 

Good to know I am not the only one!

 

I pulled the blower out and cleaned out what didn't burn. There was a lot of leaves in there.

 

very common problem...leaves and other debris come in through the cowl and into the heating system. I clean the leaves out my trucks every fall to prevent any fires from starting.

 

After I paint my truck this year, I'm installing a black screen under my cowl to prevent this.

 

That, or swapping the cowl for an 87-91 is the best way to minimize the debris that gets in.

 

This is what I'm gonna do, I have the replacement in my garage rafters someplace.

I also want to install two washer squirters like the later trucks have.

Thought about chicken wire or bug screen or something underneath on the existing cowl but I worry it'll block snow which will melt and freeze and might potentially block the air flow. Depends on the weather....

 

They are interchangeable?

 

I just picked up a cowl from a '90 for $10 last weekend just for that reason.

 

I forget the transition years, I think cowls from 1987 up to a certain point (have the holes and not slots and one washer squirter) match the body lines at the hood exactly, and from some point forward (91?) there are two squirters + holes instead of slots but the body lines won't exactly match up (but it'll still work otherwise).