Almost caught my car on fire!
 

Just a friendly PSA: Clean out around those Aux fan resistors!

Was working on the SDL earlier and kept smelling the faint smell of a grass fire. Looked down and saw smoke rising from under the fusebox! The famous Aux-Fan resistor was doing its best to start a pile of oak leaves on fire! The Shop-vac quickly solved the issue.

It only takes a few seconds to look! :eek:

I have a 91 350SDL that had that happen to it, it DID catch on fire. I am still trying to decide what to do with that car. The hood needs to be replaced and the fuse box and wiring in that area is completely burned up. Trying to decide it its worth trying to splice in new wires or just scrap the car. Car has has the updated rods in in.

I'm just extremely fortunate that I was standing there when it happened. The leaves were all from live oaks and have been there since I got the car. A million wonders it didn't go up before now! Scary...

? Any chance of a photo of the resistor you're talking about ? .

TIA,

It's a well known issue with the 126s. They use a similar power resistor to the 124 that provided the 2-stage auxiliary fan. However unlike the 124 (that has the resistor just behind the left side headlight) they put the resistor on the 126 in the well near the brake booster.

This area collects lots of leaves and junk from trees. The resistor gets hot when operating the fan on low speed (which is its normal mode, when it is just helping the a/c). Of course anything combustible on the resistor will start to smoke and burn.