This is one of those minding-your-own business stories The other day I was following a garden center delivery truck when a large piece of plastic blew out of his truck bed and into the roadway. Though I tried to evade it, I ended up driving right over the top of it. I kept looking in the rearview to see it behind me, but it got caught up under the car, so I pulled over after about a block or so to pull it out myself. The plastic had just sort of spot-welded itself to the muffler, and with a gentle tug, I freed the connection and was on my way. My problem is that burning plastic smell. Each time I have driven the car since the incident, it smells like I'm parked next to a dry cleaning operation. My question is this- should I just let the muffler burn the plastic away, or should I try to clean it off a cold muffler with some sort of solvent I'm concerned a solvent might produce a fire hazard when the muffler heats up again!
By the way, I'm a new owner of a previously-owned, Velocity Red '04 with 10.5K miles. I spent a great deal of time researching the RX-8s before I bought, and this website was invaluable in terms of practical information about the vehicle and the entire ownership experience. Keep up the great work!

 

Not sure you'd want to use any kind of solvent... I'm sure it'll all evaporate long before the exhaust gets up to temp.... but still. When I was a technician and we had people run over plastic bags the quickest way to remove the "residue" of plastic was with a wire wheel. I've found that a BRASS wired wheel doesn't harm the surface of the exhaust system like a steel one does. Go find yerself a brass wire wheel for your drill and you're good to go.

 

Good luck trying to scape that stuff off, once it melts/burns on it is almost like a unbreakable weld, I had that happen to me once and sort of grinding it off, theres not much you can do but let it burn off. I just taked up and went on a few nice long drives and it finaly went away took about a week. Sorry dude that sucks.

 

yea i had a something like that happen to me. i have not done anything about it. just smells bad. think it might be and excuse to buy a new exhaust.

beers

 

If you don't have a wire wheel, maybe a straight edge razorblade in one of those hand holders. I've had really good luck over the years scraping all sorts of Cr@p with one of those things.

Also found this:

Plastic Melted on Surface

Removing Burnt Plastic from your Toaster

Curiously, I've seen a couple of references to finger nail polish remover, which I think is just Acetone.