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Grill Blockage + Burning Smell?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Tideland Prius, Mar 14, 2007.

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  1. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    I have sensitive smell, and have always noticed a very faint whiff of coolant in very hot weather with the A/C on. No actual leaks, but the odour is there. The Prius uses plastic header tanks, as does my FJ. This summer in the hot July weather, I also detected a very faint whiff of coolant from the FJ. The coolant level is fine in both vehicles.

    With the FJ, there are zerks on the front and rear driveshaft ujoints. I frequently grease them but am too lazy to wipe off the excess grease. The front driveshaft will actually spatter the catalytic converters, and that creates a distinctive burning smell for about 5-10 minutes

    I second the poster comment about plastic garbage bags. I picked up one last year and it melted to the catalytic. Created a truly nasty pungent burning odor that just would not go away. I ended up driving out to my hobby farm, clearing the snow from the outdoor car ramp, driving the Prius up onto the ramp, and using an old gasket scraper to scrape all the charred plastic off the catalytic

    I suggest checking for oil spills. The Prius is normally so cold blooded you never notice burning smells. Once you work it good, any residual stuff on the motor or exhaust system begins to stink
     
    #41 jayman, Oct 19, 2007
  2. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Alright.. so obviously there's something in my Prius that needs to be "burned" off every once in a while.


    I now have to go up a mountain twice a week. For the first week or two, I had that same burning smell going up.

    Now, with the grill still blocked and revving the same way up the hill, there isn't any smell.

    So, I'm wondering if the Prius has to be revved up every once in a while to "burn off" whatever it is that's producing the smell?
     
    #42 Tideland Prius, Feb 2, 2008
  3. whodat

    whodat Member

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    I'm coming into this thread late. Air friction is approximately proportional to the square of velocity.

    So the faster you go, the greater the air friction and the greater the benefit of the reduced drag by blocking the grill. There will still be drag and turbulence at the grill (even with it blocked) since the air flow will not be laminar across the grill structure.

    How fast was the modified Prius travelling on the Bonneville salt flats?

    Thanks
    Dave

     
    #43 whodat, Mar 2, 2008
  4. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Update:

    so I have smelled the burning smell without the grill blockage but it's less intense.

    One thing I HAVE noticed is that after a few weeks, it's gone.

    IOW, it seems like by revving the living snot out of the engine when climbing up the hill, I must've burned something off which was giving off the burning smell. Now that I've been climbing up that mountain twice a week, I must've burnt it all off cause I don't smell it any more (that and I've removed the foam since it has gone close to 15°C a few times already).


    So... does that means we should rev the engine up every so often to burn this.. thing off??

    Remember at the beginning of this thread, I climbed the local mountain and it's the first time in a long time that I revved the engine up as for the sake of fuel efficient, I've almost never revved the engine up past... say 3,500rpm ish (no scangauge so I'm just estimating).
     
    #44 Tideland Prius, Mar 3, 2008
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