E36 melting plastic/ptex smell

[marcva]

My 1997 e36 has had a smell in the cockpit that also fills the garage. I will do some sniffing around this afternoon when I get a chance, but does anyone have any thoughts? Perhaps an overstuffed aftermarket stereo wiring harness against hot heater air? preliminary sniffing around under the hood yields some odor back by firewall / intake manifold.

Thanks,

Marc
1997 m345
Vienna, VA, usa

[dworthy]

Welcome to the Forum Marc.... umm oh yeah... Happy New Year! lol

Can you explain the smell a bit better, from the sound you are saying burning wires. I would start with pulling the fuse on that stereo, and perhaps look at the battery to see how many amps are being drawn, that would point towards a short.

[marcva]

So... I've been doing this long enough that I should trust my instincts. The burning plastic smell that I was trying to track down was...burning plastic.

I finally got under the car and found the melted remnants of a sheet of some kind of LDPE sheeting or bag that collided with my mid pipe/heat shield.

Wiring is fine (except the door wiring in my drivers side tweeter (one of these days).

Need to fix my Sig. I'm at 177k

Next projects are:

- Replace fan resistor
- Replace 11 button display (It's past Klingon to starry night display)
- Fit the new custom mount for my cordless phone charger.
- Replace the CSF Performance radiator with stock. Geometry is not working for me.

[shadowpuck]

mystery solved!! glad it was an easy fix.....