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Always carry a fire extinguisher in your retro! Sitting at about 70 in my mk2 today..... Got a slight missifire.... Gauges go mad... Pressed clutch pedal to give it a Rev........ No pedal, cables gone! Then fan/alternator belt starts screaming, so pulled over, shut engine offf, got out and opened bonnet.... Flames coming from under the engine!!!!! Thank the car gods I had a fire extinguisher! Quickly put the Flames out but the clutch cable was still glowing bright red! Got round to the boot and disconnected the battery and sat back and thought ......WTF? Always carry a fire extinguisher in an old car!!!! Still not sure why it caught fire tho! ?!?
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Hope the car isn't too bad and that it's easily fixed.
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Thanks mate, seems to be just the clutch cable and some wiring that's damaged. Trouble is not sure who built the car and what parts they used to make it work.
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v8ian
Posted a lot
Posts: 3,747
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Ill second that, always carry an extinguisher, I hit a big pothole in my Cortina when giving it welly, the prop hit the floor, catching the handbrake cable, wrapping it round the prop, which turned into a flail, pulling out my battery cable and fuel line, that needless to say set the underside of my car alight....... Carry an extinguisher!!!! ALWAYS.
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Last Edit: Mar 4, 2015 6:22:29 GMT by v8ian
Atmo V8 Power . No slicks , No gas + No bits missing . Doing it in style. Austin A35van, very different------- but still doing it in style, going to be a funmoble
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Scary as frick ain't it! Bleedin recovery driver the AA sent was a pain in the bum hole an all..... Spent more time taking pics of it than he loading it up! Gotta larf I spose!
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is it possible your engine earths have failed /come off and the entire elecs is earthing through the cable ? ive heard of it happening before
and yeah on the fire extingusher - scary stuff ive had a couple of self inflicted fires myself lol
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91 golf g60, 89 golf 16v , 88 polo breadvan
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andyf
South West
Posts: 415
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is it possible your engine earths have failed /come off and the entire elecs is earthing through the cable ? ive heard of it happening before and yeah on the fire extingusher - scary stuff ive had a couple of self inflicted fires myself lol My first thought as well, sounds like your clutch cable and/or wiring is acting as part of the electrical system. Check your earth cable between the engine and bodywork.
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1980 Triumph TR7.
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I had my old Reliant go up in flames after a fuel line split and poured fuel all over the manifold. I rather amazingly managed put out with a tiny dry powder extinguisher which I thought stood no chance. The started motor on my old Austin caught fire more recently, but luckily burnt itself out as I didn't fancy using the expensive foam extinguisher on it. All of my cars both modern and old are fitted with extinguishers now.
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Lucky escape, hope that's repairable. Been thinking about extinguishers for mine when it's finished.
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I think you guys are bang on about losing the earth, only thing that it can be surely? I'll get stuck in to it on Saturday and run a new earth to be sure! Watching your pride and joy catch fire is no fun, but saving it with a fire extinguisher sure is!!!! Gotta try and match a clutch cable up for it now as I don't have a clue what it's off of . All good fun.
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Little story once bought a mk2 orion from a car sales, asked if it came with a warrantee having a laugh as you do on a £400 car. Once your out of them gates mate don't care if bursts into flames!
Well couple of miles down the road I stop to get petrol in the local action garage and noticed smoke from under the bonnet lift it up to see the air filter in flames lol.
Mate runs into the garage asking for a token for the jet wash but didn't have any money on him tried explaining that the car was on fire next to the pump But no she wasn't having any of it that's a quid please
Anyway in the meantime he,s arguing were the cashier inside I grab a fire extinguisher and put it out. imagine my face when the car then starts straight up and we drove it to the jet was to was all the power off thinking it was mallard. Well air filter melted and just the wires of the plug leads left amazingly the car started up again and we were able to drive it to the local scrappy, You know the old type where you could take the parts off yourself (them were the days) Anyway half hour or so and it was sorted back on the road including a replacement bonnet in the same colour
If you have a mk2 orion we working out in the end for some reason the air filter housing was full of engine oil witch was dripping on to the exhaust manifold and vola
Doesn't seem so funny now in righting but it was at the time.
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Little story once bought a mk2 orion from a car sales, asked if it came with a warrantee having a laugh as you do on a £400 car. Once your out of them gates mate don't care if bursts into flames!
Well couple of miles down the road I stop to get petrol in the local action garage and noticed smoke from under the bonnet lift it up to see the air filter in flames lol.
Mate runs into the garage asking for a token for the jet wash but didn't have any money on him tried explaining that the car was on fire next to the pump But no she wasn't having any of it that's a quid please
Anyway in the meantime he,s arguing were the cashier inside I grab a fire extinguisher and put it out. imagine my face when the car then starts straight up and we drove it to the jet was to was all the power off thinking it was mallard. Well air filter melted and just the wires of the plug leads left amazingly the car started up again and we were able to drive it to the local scrappy, You know the old type where you could take the parts off yourself (them were the days) Anyway half hour or so and it was sorted back on the road including a replacement bonnet in the same colour
If you have a mk2 orion we working out in the end for some reason the air filter housing was full of engine oil witch was dripping on to the exhaust manifold and vola
Doesn't seem so funny now in righting but it was at the time.
On the carb models the air box is mounted on top of the engine and would fill up with oil due to a breather pipe located into the box. Then the oil runs down the intake pipe towards the exhaust manifold where it drips out of the warm air pipe and onto the manifold. That engine must have been breathing very heavily. Funny story.
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Ha who would of thought that stories about old cars catching fire would be funny?..... But they kind of are I spose. I can just about larf about my cortinas little cook up now I think!
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