Fire in the hole!! (Well heat exchangers anyways)

[copper]

Okay, so I had the engine out, we did a bunch of work, and I cleaned her up. There was a ton of oil residue all over, mostly on the underside, and on the exhaust and heat exchangers.

So she started up great, and the new clutch works well. Drove home, everything seemed great, but when I stopped, I noticed a lot of smoke from the underside. I got down on my hands and knees (mostly to pray) and found a very full flame inside the drivers side heat exchanger where the three pipes come out, at the front, below the hose outlet to the cabin.

So I went to get the extinguisher, and when I came back, it was out, but still smoking. So I gave it a blast anyhow.

Now I'm trying to figure out what this is. Could it be leaked oil or residue catching fire? Could it be tune up cleaner and brake and parts cleaner that I sprayed on the underside sitting in there? That would be my guess. At any rate, it worried me.

I'm gonna power wash the exhaust and into the gap in the h/e in the morning. Hopefully it was just the chemicals igniting. But boy was it going. And boy do chemical extinguishers make a huge mess.


Jim

[kach22i]

I had my rear oil cooler fail shortly after I purchased my car a couple of years ago. The mechanic said oil got everywhere. He said they drilled several small holes in my already shot heat exchangers to let oil drain out. He then told me about fires inside of heat exchanges if too much oil finds it way in there.

I still don't understandy fully how oil got in the heat exchangers, but it does happen (or so I'm told).

[copper]

My h/e are shot anyhow. Holes all over. They are disconnected. Looking inside with the engine out, the bottom of it was coated in oil. From my experience, when I get leaks and they hit the exhaust, if it's enough oil, it runs along the pipe and into the h/e on the front side.

Talked to my wrench. The chemicals are what most likely caused the flames and it went out when they burned off. And when they mix with oil, it's that much worse...

So I power washed inside my h/e today to get the remnants out.