So last night at about 10:15pm I was driving home and as I came to this stop sign my car died. I think 'OK wierd but no problem, its happened before'. I sat there for a good 5-10min trying to get her to start but she wouldn't. I then see smoke coming from under the hood and I rush out to see what it was. Well my engine was on fire, I grabbed my fire extinguisher which for some f'd up reason wouldn't spray, just my luck. The fire kept growing bigger and bigger to the point where it was all over the intake, surrounding the carb and fire was coming out through the air cleaner's intake... I called the fire department but luckily someone in a house nearby saw and ran out with a bucket of water which I had to dump on the engine.

I'm not too sure of the damage yet. I know ever single hose and spark plug wire are melted away. I'm also really tired since I spent 3 hours in the pouring rain getting her up onto my friends trailer.

This sucks.

 

I had something like this happen on my old 67, except the fire was around my battery. It blew up and all my wiring was completely screw up so I had to completely rewire it. Biggest hassel ever.

 

Well I was just talking it over with my friend. This last weekend we replaced old crappy spark plugs with some Bosch Platinums. The engine suffered the most damage right around the spark plug wires and we think that these new spark plugs, coupled with a pertronix 2 and flamethrower 2, allowed for less resistance in the wires which burnt them up along with the fuel line right next to it, and boom!

 

if you havent checked your fuel line for a while it could of been cracked and leaked out slowly over time and it got a big crack in it when it died and when you tried to start it it just kept pumping fuel all over your motor and then finally caught on fire from the manifold or coil or plug wire or something.

 

Or a float stuck open. I have seen that before allows for a goodly amout of fuel to pour out.

Gun

 

Ive got my head in my engine regularly and didn't see anything to suggest the lines were going, hmm who knows

 

i know i have to replace the lines on my ranchero quite often because i notice cracks in the hose the goes to the carb. i think i do it once or twice a year.

 

in the future, make sure your fire extinguisher is co2 and not the dry powder kind......the powder is corrosive and will destroy everything under the hood

 

make sure it works too right?

 

yep...Couple years ago I was in a friend's 454 jet boat when the engine caught on fire.....And of course the extinguisher didn't work so we jumped in the river and started splashing water on it...good times