frightening engine fire incident, long...

[911dave]

I had a real scary thing happen to me yesterday....

took my middle year 911 (CIS) out for a two hour run yesterday and the outside temperature was in the seventies. Almost home I stopped at some lights and straight away noticed smoke coming from the rear wheel arch and engine bay, the guy in the lane next to me was sounding his horn, the girl behind me appeared to be laughing.

In a state of panic, because I could now smell smoke coming through the air vents and turned into a side road and parked up somewhere safe (away from buildings etc)

I got the fire extinguisher from the glove compartment, popped the rear lid. Carefully I opened the rear lid a small amount to try and get the nozzle of the extinguisher aimed and pretty much emptied it into the engine compartment. Smoke was still fairly bad at this stage so i looked under the rear wheel and noticed that the top of the heat exchanger was on fire, the flames were not too big. I emptied the remainder of the extinguisher as best as I could, but there was not enough powder left to put the fire out and it kept on burning.

I then phoned the fire brigade who arrived very quickly within about ten minutes. Luckily for me they carefully hosed the heat exchangers, I really expected them to completely drown the car, but they listened to what I said about the heat exchangers and were satisfied that this was the problem.

I have jacked the car up at home today and the damage is very minor, the (card covered aluminium?) heater hose that goes into the engine is all blackened up is very brittle, there is black soot on the oil cooler and the heat exchanger. And thats about it, talk about lucky, I really feared the worst. Infact the worst thing is the mess of the dry powder in the engine bay and I'm glad is was only a small canister and most of it got emptied onto the engine tin.

My first diagnoses of the problem was an oil leak from the pressure switch and or the thermostat. The engine was out last year and both of these were attended too so I would be quite annoyed if it was these.

I have come up with new theory hence the reason for the post, here goes....

The lights that I stopped at when I noticed the smoke are on a fast 60 mph road. I braked extremely hard for these lights (there were no other cars around at that point) and I mean extremely hard just short of locking up the front wheels, this was from 60/70 mph. I have the stock 'A' calipers and my fronts will lock up if pressed hard enough, ie. my brakes work really well.

Could it be that during this daft braking that oil was dumped out of the breather hose into the air intake, enough of it to go onto the heat exchanger and ignite and smoke? I took the air filter off and there is a ton of oil in there, I also looked from under the car and it is dripping from that funny little drip tube thing?

I intend to do a partial drop but I wanted to get other peoples opinions.

Dave

ps. I have registered under a new name as I am a bit embarassed about this, hence the vaguness about the year of my car etc. Sorry!

[Early_S_Man]

Dave,

Sorry about the fire, and glad it didn't do much damage!

I hope no water was sprayed into the engine compartment! You now have a serious mess to clean up, and water will turn that dry chemical powder into a corrosive nightmare!

I suggest a ShopVac be used ASAP! A full engine drop is probably needed to get all of the residue off the engine and out of the nooks and crannies!

[bob hodges]

Dave,

I would be surprised that the oil caused the fire...Not knowing or seeing the engine it would be hard to give my 2 Cents. I would suspect that gas started the fire or it was electrical in nature. I would agree that if you are going to clean up the engine from the fire agent, then you need to look at doing a full drop of the engine and make sure that there is no part of any corrosive power left. Good to hear only minor damage. That is my worse nightmare is to have a fuel line seperate and spray fuel all over the engine ......say goodby to all that you valued.

[CamB]

Don't be embarrassed - the car didn't burn down

[yelcab1]

A full engine drop is in order here. I would take the engine out and carefully inspect all the areas where the fire may have started and figure out what happened. Unless you find out why, it may happen again once you have everything back together.

[Kurt B]

Glad your car and you are safe. I hope the engine damage isn't too bad. Sounds like you'll have to really inspect it to find the damage. Sure sucks.

[jthwan22]

Leaking engine oil will cause a fire. I install a pre-oiler on the fire wall of my Neon ACR. When I crashed into the wall at Pocono Raceway, it broke the oil line. The oil leaked onto the exhust manafold and started a fire. It was a bad fire. The track worker put it out but the damage was done.

[claptrap]

Planning and quick thinking saved your car, prevented
danger to those around you, and kept you from getting
hurt. In addition, you allowed others to learn from your
experience. I hope I would handle the same situation as
well. Nothing to be embarrassed about.

Scott.