Smoke from the scuttle air intakes.

[Cheekychunkyfunkymonkey]

Started the car this morning and drove it out of the garage and within 20 seconds smoke was drifting from the outside air grills in front of the windscreen. A burning smell was also noticeable. I turned the car off and disconnected the battery. It will be tomorrow before I get chance to have a proper look at it. hopefully I've caught it before its done any damage. Any suggestions on where to start as it's currently all looking prim and proper. Incidently it's the first time out since MOT last month and it did approximately 150 miles last year so it doesn't get much stick at all. and it's standard ventilation. I might have incorrectly posted something similar on the e30 chat forum as well so apologies if you've read this twice.

[Speedtouch]

I would hazard a guess that maybe leaves or similar debris has got into the bulkhead vents and that either the heater blower motor or its fan speed resistor has set light to them:

http://www.e30zone.net/e30zonewiki/inde ... nly_on_Max

Remove one of the vents (I think only the left hand one comes out easily on a RHD car) and peer in with a torch to see what's what.

[Cheekychunkyfunkymonkey]

Cheers speedtouch I'll check into that. Failing that I'll drop the glove box and trim to check the resistor condition as I'm wondering if that's burnt out and caused the smoke and the smell. As an aside I'm definitely not reconnecting the electrics until i've got to the bottom of it though, the cars to important to me take risks with.

[Cheekychunkyfunkymonkey]

Big sigh of relief it turns out it was the resistor for the blower!
The fan now only works on setting 4 but at least I know it's not going to self combust.

[Brianmoooore]

Get the fan motor out of the car and lubricate it. Fan resistors don't die of natural causes - they are killed by seizing fan motors.