1000 days to acceptance

[jasonq]

One thousand days ago i started with denial of what hppened on my way to work

and i have worked my way thru to acceptance.

The short version of the long story. Care stalls while coasting to a stop light. restart while rolling, step on the gas, car stalls again. Crap. Start car again, back fires as i roll to a stop at the light. About to try starting it again, see smoke and hint of flame in rear view. Toss backpack out driver door, grab fire extinguisher, pop engine cover, walk around back ready to put it out. By the time i get around back, flames are 1-2 ft out of the wheel wells and engine grill, and coming out all around the engine over too. So there I am in short sleeves with a small extinguisher realizing that if i open the cover I will get burned at least a little, maybe a lot, and the fire looks too big to put out with what I'm holding, and even if i do, there is a ton of damage by then. So I stand there taking it in for a bit to make sure, and decide to keep my skin intact. At that point some yells "get away from there, is going to blow up!" Ya, right, in movies, not in real life plus the gas tank is not where the fire is. Grab my backpack, call 911, fire dept shows up about 10 minutes later. I tell them how much gas is in the tank, how much oil it holds, and the engine case and other bits are magnesium. They knock down the fire in about 10 seconds flat. Then it sparks back up. knock it down again. it starts back up, they spray it again, white sparks everywhere. Yep the magnesium caught. Nothing to do but let it burn itself out. After a few hours, they brought in a sand truck and filled the engine bay with sand. then after a couple more hours the IR thermometer said the temp was dropping so they uncovered everything, and there were lots of engine internals with nothing holding them in. No more magnesium. The fire burned holes thru the road, and in those holes was boiling water. One of the firemen told me it was the longest car fire in his 30 years of fire fighting. Made the local paper and evening news.

I don't know what happened, but from how much flame there was, the smell, and how fast it spread, I am guessing the fuel line ruptured. that would explain the stalling and the back fire. the back fire probably lit the fuel, and there was no stopping it from there.

My one regret in handling the situation is that i didn't think of getting the targa top out of the trunk before the fire took over the whole car.

Now came the insurance settlement, which I was dreading, but happily State Farm was FANTASTIC. My case when to an adjuster that does a lot of classic cars. She said right off there is no blue book on a car like this, so its all comps, and as long as the comps are good, there's no problems. She advised me to send her everything i had on the car's condition and any cars for sale i thought were comparable. I put together a pdf of pictures of the car, inside and out, every receipt back to the original window sticker (I was the 6th owner, how everything survived from 73 i have no idea), the excellence market prices, and a dozen internet links to cars for sale. Their first offer was honestly significantly more than i could have sold the car for plus they gave 8% to cover the sales tax on a new one. While loosing the car sucked, i couldn't have been happier with how State Farm handled the claim.

And before anyone asks, i sold all my spare bits and pieces in the months after the fire.

So far no new 911, maybe someday, but not yet

[Porchcar guy]

So, after 1000 days without the smile that only a 911 can bring to your face or the smell of the car that is like no other...........Are you ready to join back up :=)

[944 boy]

I have yet to have a vehicle catch fire on me. I carry a 2.5lb Halotron in the Boxster and a 5lb Halon in the truck. I'll probably put a 2.5lb halon in the 911 but you still have to catch it quickly or it's hopeless.

I'm glad you are coming to terms with the loss. But it's time for a new one!

[Jonny042]

I am sorry for your loss, and glad to hear you are on the road to recovery. Now is the time to buy!

This scenario, and the OP's unfortunate luck, brings me to a question I have been pondering - should I install a permanent mount suppression system in the engine bay? This seems more common than people want to talk about?

[seymore]

That's a bummer.

You know you want a new one when you know to the day when you lost the old one.

[RWebb]

sorry to hear about your car but glad no one was injured

Mg case? or trans? what year was the car?

[fanaudical]

I remember seeing this story in the Oregonian - it was only a few days after I brought home my 911. I'm glad you've finally found some peace with what happened.

[dshepp806]

WOW,..glad you're ok. That's got to be a terrible thing to watch.

Gives me shivers thinking about such an event. When my engine was out for some work ('89), we went ahead and installed new fuel lines EVERYWHERE. Nothing was symptomatic but I felt better knowing she had fresh lines, as we removed the ORIGINAL lines installed in '89. At the time, they had about 22 years on them!

I recently assisted a friend of mine with a funky no-start issue on his '88,..ultimately getting his DME repaired, as well as repairing a bad DME relay socket (receptacle) that had a bad "female" socket pin (disintegrated). Although my buddy may be one bad-arse Attorney, he's not so confident when it comes to soldering or the electronics within the DME. Simple enough ( I say),...this shouldn't take too long so I bring over only what I need (including a new "contact pin"---thank you Loren/Systems Consuting! ). to complete the task at hand. The job gets completed,..we exchange glances at each other as he's getting in the car to give her a turn of the key....full of that "anticipation....she starts right up and delivers perfect idle. Next came the high fives as we achieved success!! Had I been on a tight schedule that day, I could have easily packed up and left at that point, telling my buddy I'll check in later to see how things are going with the car.

It so happened that my schedule was a bit more relaxed for that Saturday, (thankfully). I had never seen this friends '88 Targa (CE), BTW. After letting her idle for a few minutes, sometimes applying a few "light" taps of the gas pedal, I was confident that she needed to be taken' out and driven for a good solid time period. Before suggesting this, I asked my friend to open the engine "hood", as I wanted to get a glance of the business end of his car. After about 10-15 seconds AFTER noticing his loose fan belt and speaking with him about it, I GOT A STRONG DOSE OF THE SMELL OF GAS !!! I told him to cut her off IMMEDIATELY ! It ended up being the left side rail of the main fuel line (T) pissing gas onto the manifold. Wow,....as I looked closer, I saw the following:

Actually, you are looking at the results of what we did next, which was adding another clamp behind that front one. before doing so, the connection point would move EASILY by hand,..I re-crimped the original (just applying some heavy squeeze to the crimp point) then added another one behind it, temporarily fixing a serious issue until the proper repair can be executed. But wait! There's more! After looking at the rest of the connection points within the engine bay, I discovered that ALL of the connector ends had the same clamps! Freaked me out! Naturally, I retensioned the remaining pieces and verified that she was tight and not pissing anything.

Looking back, had I just walked away after being happy with a no-start repair,..never having looked at that engine,..this gentleman could have easily had a very bad day,..such as what you sadly experienced.

Many will walk away from your thread with some "intentions" to (hopefully) avoid such a catastrophe,.... your sharing of this experience could easily save a life.

Your decision to not open that engine hood could have possibly saved yours'.....

Bummer,..but much good will come from this, for sure.

Sorry to ramble..

BEST!

Doyle

[wacko]

I feel your pain. I purchased an 82 sc in november and It caught on fire 4 days later...horrible experience, but like you the insurance company took care of me and I got my 78 about a month later. Good luck in your search .