FIRE - A cautionary tale.

[morgan]

Fire ! A cautionary tale

I wasn’t going to post anything about this – but have decided to do so as a cautionary tale – and make sure you all get your extinguishers checked and sorted.

In short, my car caught fire the other day – like actually caught fire. But for a £20 fire extinguisher I may have been looking at a total loss.
Popping the bonnet to actual flames is not something I ever wanted to see but when it happened the only thing that saved it was my forethought to not only carry one, but to grab it as I exited the vehicle. I was actually on a ‘shakedown’ of new engine – which had a slight ‘cutout’ – like a total pause every so often (which I now know to be a short).

The cause appears to have been a previously sound wire rubbing through shielding or breaking down. Dislodged a few mm ? Whatever - who knows – but the result was the same. Somehow I got a dead short from +ve battery to ground and effectively became a welder. It got so hot so quick that the shielding on the +ve cable caught fire, once that went the flames took the rest of the looms that side. Part of it melted into the brake pipe even. I reckon 15 seconds between initial ‘BANG ! SMOKE ! ’ and fire extinguisher. PFFFTTTTT.

Anyway – we are back. 3 weeks of hard work. New engine and lighting looms. Master cyl. Starter relay. Various hoses. Bit of paint. Lots of work – all new electricals properly trimmed and protected – really nice job.

I am actually pretty cool about it – almost every other scenario was worse. As it was I was on my own, on a side road, I had an extinguisher etc etc.
Car runs beautifully now; and interestingly now has a lower ‘resting voltage’. She has always run at 15.1v when engine running – which is on the high side for sure – but now she runs at 14.6. In other words the positive side of the electrics had likely been breaking down for some time and for whatever reason on that day in time found its ground out and boom.

SO – The point of the post is not ‘woe is me’ – I am a lucky bunny. The point of the post is CHECK THOSE EXTINGUISHERS. If you don’t have one, get one. Seriously. It happens real fast.

Morgan.

[morgan]

A few more. Happier.

[MattH]

Wow, frightening. Well done for your quick action to put the fire out.

[morgan]

Wow, frightening. Well done for your quick action to put the fire out.

Yeah - thanks. Scary indeed. But like I say, its not about that. Its about "MMA. Check those extinguishers". Dont want anyone to face that.

TBH, with hindsight, it was like £500 to do the whole engine and lighting looms and every feed on the car. Almost maintenance item when an engine is out.

[Pete]

Frightening!!

Well done for your intelligence, forward planning, and quick response!

I have this conversation with Customers at least once a month where they want shiny paint but the car needs a re-wire "I can't afford a Re-Wire" is inevitably the response, but at least the car is nice an shiny...... for now.....

[Pete]

I nearly lost a Numbers Matching '70 Challenger 440 R/T in a similar way - I had to rip the wiring out by hand to prevent it going further.

Bulkhead connector Plug was the cause but by the time it had "finished" I had lost ALL the insulation from the wiring on the Passenger compartment side of the Bulkhead connector. Total Re-wire, but I saved the car.

[morgan]

Frightening!!

Well done for your intelligence, forward planning, and quick response!

I have this conversation with Customers at least once a month where they want shiny paint but the car needs a re-wire "I can't afford a Re-Wire" is inevitably the response, but at least the car is nice an shiny...... for now.....

Thankyou sir.
Yes - my wiring loom was good - I had already had a new one - but what I had never done is all the direct feeds - and these were the ones that failed.
Irony being I’ve always run an isolator - but that’s only any good if the main feed integrity is good.
£10 of cable guys… you know it makes sense

[Matt74]

I think you were lucky to have put that fire out Morgan.
The fire extinguisher that I carry in my Capri is in the boot with the spare wheel.
I think I might buy another to keep in the glove box.

Incidentally I watched a YouTube video about adding an additional starter relay and the guy strongly recommended fitting a mega fuse in the main positive battery cable as close to the battery terminal as possible.

I think I might do this to all of my cars now starting with the Capri seeing as that is the only jalopy that I have on the road at the moment!

[gmopar59]

Had a similar back in the late 80s with my GTX. Managed to put it out but girlfriend and I were stuck just south of the border in the Repbulic of Ireland with 10 quid to our name which we spent on a sandwich and a couple of beers. The local bar was good enought to put us up in their B&B until the next morning when I had to get the car to the border so the AA would pick up. That's another story. She's still with me, the girl, not the car.

[morgan]

I think you were lucky to have put that fire out Morgan.
The fire extinguisher that I carry in my Capri is in the boot with the spare wheel.
I think I might buy another to keep in the glove box.

Incidentally I watched a YouTube video about adding an additional starter relay and the guy strongly recommended fitting a mega fuse in the main positive battery cable as close to the battery terminal as possible.

I think I might do this to all of my cars now starting with the Capri seeing as that is the only jalopy that I have on the road at the moment!

Extinguisher in passenger footwell, mounted vertically in front of door. In sight and grabable !!

Yes, some kind of immediate quick release on the battery terminal is coming. I bought a couple but they were no good.
It is a must though, one of the big problem I had when fire was out was that I couldnt get the red-hot terminals off - took me about a minute.

[Dave999]

oh mate.. scary thing... takes a while to get the heart rate back down eh....
glad you got it all sorted....
new set of wires always makes it run better.

nearly needed new pants when my car filled up with smoke/ fog via steering column and gear shift boot on M25
was a chest height dense sweet smelling throat burning Smog by the time i got it pulled over.
hard to see extinguisher in a pea souper...
mine.....burning boiling coolant all over the exhaust and trans... i was Lucky.... nothing like peering through the grill looking for flames with the trucks thundering past.

Was it the main red one from battery up the car wing to the bulkhead? or was it the one that goes to the starter relay i.e the fusible link??!!.
must have been a fat one to make that mess.....

years ago had similar under the dash. luckily small enough for me to grab it and snuff it out.... did melt my fingers slightly . Corrosion set the rubber D shaped 4 bullet ignition switch connector on fire.... so it doesn't even need to be a short to set it off.
i cleaned and re set the grippy bits on every connector after that.... needle nose pliers are my friend.

Dave

[morgan]

oh mate.. scary thing... takes a while to get the heart rate back down eh....
glad you got it all sorted....
new set of wires always makes it run better.

nearly needed new pants when my car filled up with smoke/ fog via steering column and gear shift boot on M25
was a chest height dense sweet smelling throat burning Smog by the time i got it pulled over.
hard to see extinguisher in a pea souper...
mine.....burning boiling coolant all over the exhaust and trans... i was Lucky.... nothing like peering through the grill looking for flames with the trucks thundering past.

Was it the main red one from battery up the car wing to the bulkhead? or was it the one that goes to the starter relay i.e the fusible link??!!.
must have been a fat one to make that mess.....

years ago had similar under the dash. luckily small enough for me to grab it and snuff it out.... did melt my fingers slightly . Corrosion set the rubber D shaped 4 bullet ignition switch connector on fire.... so it doesn't even need to be a short to set it off.
i cleaned and re set the grippy bits on every connector after that.... needle nose pliers are my friend.

Dave

Assume fat one - check out pic3 - that shows the remains of the cable sleeve vapourised into place.
The manky green one was starter to isolator and that had turned to sponge - so which was first I don’t know. Once the big one got a weld onto the brake pipe it was fzzzzzt-BANG (surprisingly loud)