I am posting this here because nothing else makes sense

-
Pawned

Pawned

N.R.A. Lifetime Member - And damn proud of it
Joined
Jun 29, 2013
Messages
1,605
Reaction score
186
Location
Valle del Sol, AZ
Debbie had just got home so I moved my Taurus so she could park in the garage, then went back to working on Natalie. Left the garage door open as I am working on Natalie most of the afternoon.
I am lying on my back with my feet out Natalie's drivers door. I am working on installing a fan switch in the middle of the dash board. All of a sudden I smell smoke or feel heat, I do not know which. I look around and the car is on fire. I had the steering wheel and a few papers on the floor in front of the passenger seat. The papers are burning. I grab the wheel and move it. I try to stomp out the fire with my hands. I grab the papers, the part that has not burnt yet and throw it out the window. I grab the inexpensive fire extinguisher the size of a can of pledge and pull the tab and the whole top comes off and will not work.
I got out of the car from the drivers door and go around the car and stomp out the papers that are still burning. The fire is now out. Luckily there was a heavy rubber floor mat so it did not damage the carpet.

I go over everything and find there is absolutely nothing there that can start a fire. There is only one possibility and I do not think it is feasible, is that someone walked into the garage and grabbed some paper, lit them and dropped them in the window. ............. I called Debbie out and she also could not see anything that would cause a fire.
I am now inside for the day and I disconnected the battery, took out the main fuse and closed the garage door.
I am a little shook up, not because of what happened, but because I can not understand how it happened. :banghead::banghead:
 
Was the battery disconnected while you had everything apart? Maybe a wire was arcing enough to heat up some insulation and get it smoldering, or it dropped a few sparks on the paper lying there?
 
Spontaneous combustion. It is real.
 
How shall I say, "statistically," it's much more feasable that you had some sort of electrical short.

You smoke?
 
Wow! That's crazy! Post #2 makes sense. Get a voltmeter and start testing wires.
 
sounds like a small electrical short, most likely caused by a frayed wire moving around while you were working on the switch, caused a few small sparks to fall out from under the dash and onto the paper, igniting it
that or someone left a magnifying glass, or reading glasses sitting, and the sunlight focused on the paper igniting it
 
I had the same thing happen in my dart and except I had a wire totally burn the insulation off and smoked out the interior of the car .....it was a wire going to the emergency light flasher and it appears, even though its still under investigation that the broken up turn signal switch in the column had something to do with it.

this car had wiring "work" done by the previous owner so it don't surprise me.

maybe check if there any wiring mods done before that might be suspect.

sorry to hear of your trouble and glad the car is not damaged and most of all ...you didn't get hurt.

we can replace car parts all day, but we cant fix injured people so easy ...so be careful.
 
Somebody already asked but did you disconnect the battery before working on the switch? I tried installing a stereo (cassette so it was a while ago) in my 1970 Duster years ago and while lying upside down under the dash there was a big flash and I never found out where it came from. It wasn't the wires I was playing with at that moment. Now I disconnect the battery every time I do anything no matter if it is electrical or mechanical.
 
Fires suck and can be scary. I've had a few close calls before. Now I play it double safe when working on cars. Glad you didn't get hurt and the car didn't burn up.
 
A tip I heard about when working on the electrical and you need power. First, disconnect the battery and hook up a low amperage battery charger. You'll still have power and can tell about a short, but you won't have all the amps.
 
This thread has helped to gain a greater appreciation of electrical safety in our hobby. We go overboard with safety at work, and that makes me numb to what generally seems excessive. Thanks guys. no kidding
 
As we all know our cars are old. I would do a thorough inspection of the wiring under the dash could have some mouse eaten wires under there with you working on the wiring something could have shorted out causing the fire. Glad you didn`t have any major damage or injury. Let this be a wake up call for anyone not having a good fire extinguisher in their car/garage/workshops & home.
 
The previous owner of my Valiant hacked up the in-dash harness to put in a cd player and some different speakers. I ended up pulling it all out and soldering everything back the way it should've been and used the nice heat shrink stuff over the connections.
Also, when the junk Autozone alternator somehow failed internally and caused some underhood wires to go up in smoke I went ahead and pulled the whole engine/headlight harness out and went over every inch. Made all the repairs with fusible links and solder and shrink tube. I know it's done right now.

Better to be safe than sorry....especially with wiring in our old Mopes.
 
All I know is that the battery was not disconnected. It is now. I have a good fire extinguisher in the garage, but this was a cheap one I put in the car, I guess for just this event.
The only thing was the turn flasher was hanging near by where the fire started. I checked it and I do not believe it was involved.
I have examined the wiring and have replaced much of it. Primarily in the engine compartment and drivers side behind the dash. If I ever figure this out, rest assured I will post it here.
 
Louie70Dart said:
A tip I heard about when working on the electrical and you need power. First, disconnect the battery and hook up a low amperage battery charger. You'll still have power and can tell about a short, but you won't have all the amps.
Click to expand...

This is a fantastic idea. My charger puts out 40 amps (not adjustable) But I have a cheap one that might work.
 
Louie70Dart said:
A tip I heard about when working on the electrical and you need power. First, disconnect the battery and hook up a low amperage battery charger. You'll still have power and can tell about a short, but you won't have all the amps.
Click to expand...

A much much better way is to wire a light bulb in series with the battery

I keep, besides the usual commercially made test lamps.................

A junk stop/ tail socket with 1157 lamp...............

and one or two old headlamps

So in order of low to more current flow, you have

commercial test lamps with fairly small bulbs

The lamp socket using the two hot leads, which puts the two filaments in series

The socket using the tail filament

The socket using the stop filament

The socket using both wires in parallel, both filaments

A headlight bulb.................

and if it's a single, or a low beam quad, you can wire either

low beam, or

both low and high beam in parallel.

There is no wire that I'm aware of in your car, that two headlight filaments won't protect against burn--out.
 
Are there issues on this year with the amp meter wiring? I know my 78 Lil red Express was at risk for fire due to that...
 
Louie70Dart said:
A tip I heard about when working on the electrical and you need power. First, disconnect the battery and hook up a low amperage battery charger. You'll still have power and can tell about a short, but you won't have all the amps.
Click to expand...

Pawned said:
This is a fantastic idea. My charger puts out 40 amps (not adjustable) But I have a cheap one that might work.
Click to expand...

I use a battery tender for this.
 
I can't believe nobody mentioned this. What gauge wire were you running current through? Too much electricity through to thin a wire will get stuff hot enough to burn. Quick,fast, and in a hurry.
 
After reading this I checked all of our fire extinguishers.....Good luck in figuring it out...
 
RustyRatRod said:
Spontaneous combustion. It is real.
Click to expand...

How long was the papers in the car and was they stacked up. This is my call
Being a FIre Fighter u see it all the time and if it was hot out side, you moved the enough to get a little more o2 it will happen
 
Here's another "stranger than true" incident.

Friend of mine had a "consumer device," a little lamp powered by a wall wort. The thing "melted" part of the wall wort while my friends were out of their house, and he, being an electronics type, took the wall wort apart to "see."

There was NO DAMAGE!!!! INTERNALLY!!!!

He showed it to me and asked me what I thought.

I thought "external heat?" and spied a clock they had within range of the nearby window, one of those little crystal things inside a glass enclosure

I said, "heat from the outside, could it be that clock and the sun?"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top