My Charger Caught on FIRE

[Charger_Fan]

Glad you & the car are both ok...much better ending to the story that the alternative.
Oh & this is the very reason why I try to never have a rubber ruel line (or connection) near the distributor. This goes for those cheap plastic fuel filter, too. I've seen those split at the seams from heat & spray fuel on an engine before. Luckily with that one, the carb just ran out of gas & the engine died before anything caught fire.

[71ChallengeHer]

Dan, Shelby told me about this last nite. I'm so glad your ok.    And the Charger doesn't look too bad.    Let us know if we can help.

[bordin34]

Thanks
So far all that I know needs to be replaced is one plug wire, the distributor and cap, a couple feet of fuel line, one wire for the choke on the carb, the distributor 12v feed wires need to be soldered onto the new dizzy, and the temp sending unit wire. I am hoping there is no electrical damage I hosed the car down again today.

[Charger-Bodie]

Turn that fuel line around, so it comes in from the rear. You will have far less risk of fire that way.

[tommymac]

Your Lucky you caught it when you did,I had a similar episode,Driving down the road I smelled like paper burning and thought it came from a large truck ahead of me,all of a sudden my brakes faded to nothing and pulled into a gas station near the pumps , dripping flame onto the concrete,not knowing! I stopped and saw smoke coming from the cowl and hood,lifted the hood and the flames went all the way to the bottom of the hood.The kid inside came running out with a large bowl of water and said Hey Your On FIRE! I tossed it on a large rag I had left under the hood to catch some brake fluid dripping from the master while filling it ,DUH I forgot about it. While driving it must have blown down onto the headers and caught fire,and totally burnt just a plug wire and boiled the brake fluid in the lines .Boy what a dumb move!!I feel very lucky I could have blown up the gas station,and burnt up my car .I do have a extingusher but not CO2,plan on it.

[mopar73]

Glad to hear that you are ok and that the car only has minor damage.  Always, always carry a fire extinguisher with you..

[firefighter3931]

That is what we call a good stop in the firefighting bussiness. 

Damage looks minimal and it would have been much worse without an extinguisher. 



Ron

[FastbackJon]

Glad it worked out.

My red '66 caught on fire once under the hood due to a triangle edelbrock air cleaner and a backfire. Just the air cleaner caught on fire. Luckily I wasn't driving and I had the extinguisher right there to put it out.

Also with the '73 PW this year, had it warming up in the garage and had the hood open, and noticed a bunch of fluid on top of the intake manifold. Thought it was coolant at first but then noticed the rubber fuel line going up to the carb was severely cracked and spraying gas all over. Probably the original line. Got it shut off, battery disconnected and replaced. Thankfully I didn't find out the problem on the road!

Some guys aren't so lucky!

[mjwebb]

turns out my little flame off the alternator wire was due to missing washers on the wire connection....the wire was just arcing to the alternator and got red hot...boy, to think a 5 cent washer could have torched my car...just passing this on for folks to make sure that part isn't missing

[mikepmcs]

Cody you see that last post by MJ?

[69bronzeT5]

Cody you see that last post by MJ?

I'll be printing out the topic about the alternator the odd posts about that kinda stuff before I leave for Vancouver next Friday. Man Jon, those pictures are enough to make me cry. Especially the middle one!

[bordin34]

It lives  . Today I bought a new distributor and fuel line, cleaned the air filter, and soldered a bit. I set the timing while getting shocked and it runs. I took it out for a test drive and it was running great, until a nice tight turn when it suddenly backfired a lot for a second then died, which is so much fun when your power steering and brakes. So I was stranded for ten minutes until my tools came, I swapped my old ignition back on and all was good. I think I fried my Summit ignition.

[chargerboy69]

At least nobody got hurt. Hope it comes out okay. Fire extinguisher powder is baaad stuff on electronics and electrical parts.

Ah yea, I was thinking the same thing. If it was a common dry chem extinguisher you might as well replace all the electrics. That stuff gets into everything and it eats electronics. This is the reason that computer facilities only have CO2 extinguishers on site. If you have insurance on the car you may want to get them involved in the repairs that I suspect you will soon encounter.

Bryan

You are exactly right.  Not good stuff to get down a carb either.  Guys should not put those dry chemical extinguishers in their cars.

[69bronzeT5]

At least nobody got hurt. Hope it comes out okay. Fire extinguisher powder is baaad stuff on electronics and electrical parts.

Ah yea, I was thinking the same thing. If it was a common dry chem extinguisher you might as well replace all the electrics. That stuff gets into everything and it eats electronics. This is the reason that computer facilities only have CO2 extinguishers on site. If you have insurance on the car you may want to get them involved in the repairs that I suspect you will soon encounter.

Bryan

You are exactly right.  Not good stuff to get down a carb either.  Guys should not put those dry chemical extinguishers in their cars.

Unfortentley, it's the only thing I have right now. I can't afford a CO2 one.

[FLG]

Rather have some eaten electronics then no car at all 

[mjwebb]

well now they're telling me something different, actually did have the insulation washer thing on there, it was what got torched and started the small flame and fried my alternator, but the root cause was a wiring issue with the horn, relay or something I don't quite fully understand..anyway I'm picking it up today and they'll let me know exactly what the electrical issue was/is...they are disabling the horn and relay for now..I'll try and post a comprehensive explanation just for knowledge sharing...

[tan top]

It lives  . Today I bought a new distributor and fuel line, cleaned the air filter, and soldered a bit. I set the timing while getting shocked and it runs. I took it out for a test drive and it was running great, until a nice tight turn when it suddenly backfired a lot for a second then died, which is so much fun when your power steering and brakes. So I was stranded for ten minutes until my tools came, I swapped my old ignition back on and all was good. I think I fried my Summit ignition.

thats great  got it running

Glad it worked out.

My red '66 caught on fire once under the hood due to a triangle edelbrock air cleaner and a backfire. Just the air cleaner caught on fire. Luckily I wasn't driving and I had the extinguisher right there to put it out.

Also with the '73 PW this year, had it warming up in the garage and had the hood open, and noticed a bunch of fluid on top of the intake manifold. Thought it was coolant at first but then noticed the rubber fuel line going up to the carb was severely cracked and spraying gas all over. Probably the original line. Got it shut off, battery disconnected and replaced. Thankfully I didn't find out the problem on the road!

Some guys aren't so lucky!

thats some sad sights     ..all look fixable though ! do you know that caused them all  ..thinking the silver one , the guy might of been welding on the underside 

[quapman]

All of us over at the 3rd Gen. Site give you a big "Whew!"

I need to get me a fire extinguisher!

[BROCK]

All of us over at the 3rd Gen. Site give you a big "Whew!"

I need to get me a fire extinguisher!

I'm with you on that Q!  And where is that thread about converting the amp gauge to a voltmeter?

An ounce of prevention................