'97 GT fan blowing electrical burning smell and smoke from vents when fan turned up

With the fan on 1 or 2, everything seems to work fine. A/C blows cold(ish) and heater blows hot. But if I turn the fan to 3, (no matter the temp setting or if the a/c is on or off) I start getting a slight electrical burning smell. Turn it to 4 and the smell gets worse as well as slight smoke coming out of the vents. If I turn it to 5, heavy smoke starts pouring in and after a few seconds the fan slows way down. I can go back to 2 and all is well again. I haven't kept it on 4 or 5 for more than a few seconds for fear of starting a wire fire. What could be causing this? Resistor? Blower motor? What wire could be burning, if a wire at all?

Thanks for you help!

It really could be both the motor and the resistor. I would tell you to get under and look at both of them, see if anything is melting or looks to be burnt. Other than that I don't think you can really be completely sure what it is.

Just went through this with my car. No smoke, but did get the electrical smell. Fan would only power up on position 5 after a short while. I picked up a new OEM fan and resistor from a distributor on Amazon.com - A little over $60 for both parts plus shipping. Might need to be a little bit of a contortionist to get under the glove box, but the replacement wasn't very hard for either of these.

What it sounds like is your getting water into the blower motor and you see it on the floor board too I'd imagine after it rains? if not id replace the blower motor and maybe the resistor check the connectors for both to see if they are melted at all. Mine did that burning electric l smell and smoke after a new blower motor. Added the thinf under the cowl to redirect water and smell and smoke stopped.

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