Foul smells emitting from under hood of car

[cohibasurfer]

It's probably your upper lip. :sign:

 

[Aeroscott]

Fords are famous for heater cores going bad. Have you noticed any type of fog/condensation on the windshield above the defroster vents?

If you're smelling a sickly, rotten, sweet smell, then that would be suspect. Also, go to the passenger side floor board and look to see if you can see any evidence of antifreeze leaking on the floor. Peel the carpet back by the firewall to see if you also see any evidence of coolant leaking.
Then look up to see if you also see any antifreeze drips.


Another possibility is a dead rodent in the air filter housing (least likely), or I have seen rodents get caught in the HVAC blower fan and die.
This usually causes a noisy vibration of sorts though, because the weight of the mouse causes the fan to be off balance.

Sounds like someone has first hand knowlege of this scenario as do I. I can tell jfields is a fellow auto tecnician by the description of the fan vibration, I found a bloody dead rat in fan in a a brand new PT cruiser once, the stink and mess was beyond sickening. It was impossible to clean out all the blood inside the heater box, I think the customer wound up selling the car.
My W.A.G. (wild ass guess) is a rat or other small animal was snuggling with thr front of your motor, when you started the engine, it got caught in the fan belt(s) and bought the farm, all and/or part of the ani al may still be lodged in your front end, stinking to high heaven.

 

[BlindedByScience]

....it's just a Ford. They always stink like long dead ass..... :laugh:

Sorry Rod, couldn't resist.....

Good luck with finding the offending "matter".......B.B.S.

 

[chewbacco]

hey Rod, dunno if anyone has said this yet (didn't have time to read the whole post)...it's a Possum.

Your area (and mine) is full of them.

You either: 1) ran over one or 2) it was in your engine in before you started.


It does smell like burnt rubber...