Hi everyone. Sorry if this is posted in the wrong spot. This morning when first starting the truck smoke started blowing from the vents. It smells just like a bonfire (not burnt oil or coolant) and only happened for maybe 15 seconds. I immediately shut the engine off and checked under the hood. I dug around but couldn’t find any burnt wires indicating a short (that I could see without removing parts). I did notice that the smoke seemed to be coming from the area with the blower motor. I’ve been having issues with air conditioning (not as powerful as I’d like it) and the other day the blower actually stopped working entirely for a few seconds. After reading that blowers and blower resisters can sometimes smoke if there is something causing too much friction inside, I ended up removing the resister. Inside I found packed with what looks like old leaves(?) but no mice nests as far as I could tell. None of the leaves I vacuumed out looked burnt but maybe the burnt material was blown through the vents?

My question is do you think the smoke could have been caused by leaf build up inside the blower/resister? Is it easy to get leaves/other crap inside? I just bought the truck a few months ago and haven’t used the air conditioning much since. And if it is in fact just leaf buildup is it safe to continue driving now? I’ve been driving it off and on today without any more smoke at all. The blower even seems to be a little more powerful after cleaning it out.

1994 4.0 L 4x4

 

You should be fine

Yes, the leaves can smoke once they are dry enough
The fresh air vent is under the unremovable cowl vent on passenger side, so any debris that falls thru the slats will find its way into the blower area

Best to pull blower out and vacuum up what you can every few years, if you park under trees for any length of time