Smoke from dash at heater/AC controls

[don340-4]

Small puff of smoke from heater control panel above the radio when I turned the key to the on position, had not started the engine yet, this is a 69 Road Runner, has anyone ever experienced anything like this? Scared the hell out of me, the smoke only lasted a few seconds & everything seems to be working OK

 

[Photon440]

I looked in both the shop manual and owners' manual. That shouldn't have happened.




However, you have a nice looking road runner!

 

[Darthomas]

Check the terminals on the ammeter.
Make certain they are tight.

 

[65-440]

I had smoke from mine as well, pulled the heater controls out to look around. could smell burnt electrical smell at the fan speed lever. pulled that apart, found a poor terminal connection inside the little mechanism. fixed that, cleaned all of the contact points for the lever and applied some fresh dielectric grease. no problems since .... good luck !

 

[Sixpactogo]

You probably no longer have the high speed on your blower motor. What usually happens with these cars is the blower motor gets tired or dirty and takes a lot of current flow to run the blower motor. Especially on high speed. It overloads the circuit and usually will burn up the high speed terminal on the switch even before blowing the fuse. Since you saw smoke from that area, I would inspect the switch connections and if there is evidence of heating, you will need to give that blower motor some needed attention. Nice RR by the way.

 

[Pops1967GTX]

I would be concerned & would not start vehicle until I did a proper check of all electrical systems..

don't start moving connections around trial and error to see what works. Get a electrical diagram for the vehicle first.you will just end up frying the system.

Did you have a smell after the smoke came from the dash? it may be a leaking heater core.
If it is more of a burning smell then you have an electrical short and melting wiring.

 

[Darthomas]

High speed fan contacts do burn out.
Consider figuring out which wire goes live when switched into high.
Then wire it to a relay, and have the relay put a solid 12 v to the fan, bypassing the switch.
Other thing to check is the heater fan fuse clip.
They get oxidized and dull, then hot and lose spring tension.

 

[don340-4]

High speed fan contacts do burn out.
Consider figuring out which wire goes live when switched into high.
Then wire it to a relay, and have the relay put a solid 12 v to the fan, bypassing the switch.
Other thing to check is the heater fan fuse clip.
They get oxidized and dull, then hot and lose spring tension.

 

[don340-4]

Wow! this forum rocks, so many responses & ideas, I guess I will be crawling under the dash, I did not have the fan on when the smoke appeared so I can probably eliminate the fan switch. I'll post what I find with some pictures. Thanks for all the compliments on my car.

 

[threewood]

Your going to need this to replace what got out....

 

[65-440]

Your going to need this to replace what got out....
View attachment 392559

That's awesome !