Updated in post #8.

2003 350z, 6MT, 101k

Last night my GF's Z started having a very troubling burning/melting plastic smell after a short ~15min drive.. oil pressure and temp gauge read normal.

when we got it home i took a look but found nothing obvious... then hit up the search function here and went on a hunt for a plastic bag on the exhaust but found nothing.

We did notice what seems to be a very hot spot around the passenger strut shown in red.. this entire area was at least 20* hotter (by touch) than its mirror


tonight i am going to take a look at the brakes to see if it may have seized but i dont know why that would smell like plastic burning.

Any ideas?

 

maybe a wire got pinched and it grounding out, melting the casing?

 

Wiring did cross my mind, and the factory harness is right there, but the wireloom itself did not feel hot. I will be sure to investigate that when i look it over tonight.

 

my car does the same thing and it does seem to be coming from the passenger side, but there seems to be some plastic bag that was burnt onto the passenger side exhaust pipe. I'm gonna burn the rest off and see if that's the cause.

 

i had a big trash bag hit at my X pipe and then melt all the way to the muffler, and it smelled so bad, but not from under the hood. i guess if it hit the cat or something dropped on the header then it would

 

haha those bags seem to be a pretty common problem for your Z's. I literally found 10+ posts where that was the issue when i searched for "burning smell"

I did a quick look under last night but couldn't lift it up as I had lent my jack to a friend yesterday.
Ill look again tonight for that but in the meantime.. Any one have any other ideas?

 

so last night i put it up on stands, searching for that plastic bag... i saw no bags, but i did find a small mark of something that may have been a bag, so i took a wire brush to it.

i then ran the car for about 20-25min.. no smell, no hot strut tower bar.. so i went on to take apart the passenger brake to reset the caliper in case it had gotten stuck. the back pad was pretty blackened when i cleaned it so i think that may have been the issue. i will post back with final checks later tonight.

 

Well that was disappointing... felt the fender/strut area after just a 2.5 mile drive and it was getting pretty hot again

came home a sprayed a little water at each front caliper and the passenger sizzled instantly.. 100% that brake is binding.
any one have any rebuild/clean-up ideas before i have to buy new calipers?