well friday night i am cruisin the olds on my way home . rockin out to some tunes in a great mood and all the sudden i hear this weird noise ...kind of a muffled pop and the car fills with smoke and dies......of course i am in the left lane and cant get right over to the curb. and trying to steer and brake was a ***** because it has power steering and brakes and now the car is off......all i can think of is my car is gonna burn down and i dont have a fire extinguisher .......i lucked out and got the small fire underneath my dash out....got it towed home .the next day i look at it in the daylight and it looked like somebody put and m-80 under my dash....but the point of this rambling is.....i knew i needed to rewire the car for a bout a year or so and it was actually supposed to get done this coming week .but i came really close to losin my car because i didnt take car of something that i knew i needed to do.....i remember a while back i think it was roadstars son race who his 60 impala burned down...and that was goin through my mind...all i can say is if you think you have wiring issues ....FIX EM !!!! i lucked out this time but i dont want to have a next time.....has anybody else had this happen ?????.......o.k well thats it ...carry on.....
Scary!!!! Im glad it was'nt to bad...My brothes Bonnivlle Burnt up one night when he let the Valet at a Resturant park it ,,,the guy left the car in accessory and it started smoking ..insted of the guy trying to put it out he came in the resturant and says "Sorry sir but there a problem with you car" so he runs out and the ****er is on fire!!! so they finaly get the fire out and ****ed his car up pretty bad he ended up restoring it pretty well..But the ****ty side of it is that the Valet company did pay for **** ..and by the time he would of took them to court it would of cost more for legal fees then just to fix it himself...Totaly GAY.. We need to get together homie so I can Shoot you soon... Smoke in car = BAAAAAD Evel
That ****s, when you rewire, don't bundle the wires too tight to each other and support them so they don't bouce around and scuff the covers off.Use new gromets where they go through metal. Also, other than the starter, have EVERYTHING coming off a fuseable link. That way, it'll burn out if you have a dead short to ground hopefully before the fires start. I blew one in a pouring rain in a brand new Starfire V8 (Like a Monza V8) seems the factory strung the main wire harness across the top of the manifold under the accelerator linkage and when I floored it it grounded out the whole ****bang and fried the fuseable link at the battery. It was sure fun pushing the car out of the fast lane of Pacific Coast Highway in the down pour!
damn holmes, you need to be careful with all them switches. how bad is it? does your ride still hit side to side? 3 wheel motion? this isnt going to hurt your bed dancing career is it? hahahaha. electrical fires ****. ****s more when the oil pressure gauge line gets caught up in it all and you have oil squirting inside the car on top of everything else!
[ QUOTE ] Scary!!!! Im glad it was'nt to bad...My brothes Bonnivlle Burnt up one night when he let the Valet at a Resturant park it ,,,the guy left the car in accessory and it started smoking ..insted of the guy trying to put it out he came in the resturant and says "Sorry sir but there a problem with you car" so he runs out and the ****er is on fire!!! so they finaly get the fire out and ****ed his car up pretty bad he ended up restoring it pretty well..But the ****ty side of it is that the Valet company did pay for **** ..and by the time he would of took them to court it would of cost more for legal fees then just to fix it himself...Totaly GAY.. We need to get together homie so I can Shoot you soon... Smoke in car = BAAAAAD Evel [/ QUOTE ] I hate Valet parking. Especially when they are just parking them in the lot you are standing in anyway.
that ****s man. yeah Rick oil pressure gauge lines ****. Mine busted under my hood once and the **** was all over my drivbeway. I guess better there then in the car though.
Same thing happened to me in my Shoebox... Was driving to Bar Deluxe one night to trip on the HollyBillies, when all of a sudden there was a huge flash from under the dash. Before I knew it my pant legs were on fire. I pulled off the freeway and got it to a stop and shut it down. My friend put the fire out while I drove it to a stop. I had an extinguisher but it was in the trunk. He used a jacket. I didn't get burned. The car ran but no lights. So I pulled it under a streetlamp in West Hollywood and my friend and I rewired the car right there, and drove it to the club. I always carried a roll of 12 gauge, ****-connectors and crimpers/strippers. Later I bought a harness and completely rewired the car from bumper to bumper. It's so much nicer when you know all the electrical is solid. It's worth it to rewire just about any older car you buy no matter what the condition.
[ QUOTE ] that ****s man. yeah Rick oil pressure gauge lines ****. Mine busted under my hood once and the **** was all over my drivbeway. I guess better there then in the car though. [/ QUOTE ] br*** lines! learn it, know it, live it.
happened to a friend of mine long time ago... we told him to rewire it on a daily basis, but he never listened... one day he pulls up to my house with smoke pouring out of the hood and dash, was a small fire. needless to say, from that day on his wiring jobs have been clean and reliable hope the ride sustained minimal damage
The dumb *** part is NOT having a fire extinguisher. I wouldn't get down on yourself because of the old, worn out wiring, cuz a fire can start any number of ways. The not having a fire extinguisher is the issue you need to resolve. Folks always think, it will never happen to me, happens to the other guy. Well let me tell you, a fire can happen in the blink of an eye, as you now know. Most here know that I lost my 47 Chevy convert to a fire but most don't know about the fire I had in Big Olds last June while in St Paul, MN. I was leaving the fairgrounds on Sunday evening about 5pm heading north on Snelling toward the freeway to head home. Yeah, I know, late start for home but I was having too good of a time to leave. Well I was having a good time "playing" around with this black 55 Chevy, I smelled something, thought at first it was rubber. Looked across the front of my hood for a split second thinking I might see smoke coming from the stainless trim holes if I had fire under the hood. Then glanced to my right alittle, and caught fire out of the corner of my eye thru where the glovebox door would be. HOLY ****! I screamed FIRE! as I pulled over to the side of the road, grabbing a water bottle that was on the seat next to me. I emptied that water bottle on the fuse panel, which was what was on fire! I jumped out and grabbed my fire extinguisher just in case it flared up again. (side not: extinguisher belongs INSIDE your car, not in the truck buried under stuff) Anyway, what had happened was an alternator wire had rubbed raw against this sharp edged wire loom thingy and had shorted out causing a diode? in the fuse panel to catch on fire? 11 wires burned. A huge mess. Point is, EVERYONE needs a fire extinguisher in their hot rod, PERIOD! You never know when not only you might need it but when you might be able to help someone else out. I now have one mounted to the floor right between my seat and my door. I can reach it with left hand before I even stop Big Olds. I carry a "spare" in the trunk too. You were very lucky not to lost the whole car. Learn from this, buy a COUPLE of fire extinguisher, and have them handy. Fire extinguishers make great Christmas presents. Put one on your list today
denise you are so right ......i was so mad at myself for not having one.....but i will now....... ricky ,you ****in kill me dude......RULER !...... evil......yeah dude call me ......... yeah the car isnt bad but it could have been .i got little burns on my socks and ankles so i guess i could a caught fire too....a new wiring harness and an extinguisher and i will back on the road .....one of the worst things was i was supposed to take it to a sultans picnic in long beach the next day and couldnt. i had to ride in the back of my buddies rivi.....and i had to say '' yeah i have an olds...but its at home....no really its *****in......haha that ****ed.....again i feel lucky ......oh yeah if you ever see a guy with his car full of smoke trying to get to the sude of the road . PLEASE let him over ....it may be me .....haha i hope not.........
I've been thinking about buying an extinguisher for some time due to things like this. I'm gonna have to get one asap. Atleast you were able to put it out. -Dane
lol yeah fire extinguishers are good to have, good when driving, great when building, pricless when on fire the under side of the ford caught on fire when a spark jumped acrost into some old undearspray grease oil mixture coating thats acuamulated over 53 years under body of the car. gota watch out for that stuff :S tim
man donnie, glad everything worked out OK, no major damage. im gonna go buy a fire extinguisher for my 61..... wes
a week ago my girlfriend's mum's car, a 96 model hatchback, which had been parked for two hours, caught fire under the hood or dash, we're not quite sure, and burnt to the ground. the fire brigade said that if her dad wasn't home to call them up, the fuel tank would have been involved, and it's possible it could have blown the front of the house clean off!!! her dad only noticed it when the windscreen blew out from the heat and made a big popping noise... and the car was OFF! and fairly late-model too. carry extinguishers boys. no reason not to. glad you're okay lownslow...
Fire extinguishers are cheap insurance. Not just for you,but everyone you're around. Heck, buy two. Just in case. Keep one up front and the spare in the trunk. APC (those sport compact ****ers) even sell them in chrome and anodized finishes if you're worried about looks. I'd much rather have a plain jane looking extinguisher layin' there then a big burn mark,scorched upholstery or bubbled paint. errr.. primer I meant.
I too carry an extinguisher but I also want to elaborate on other issues. My experience for years was in the large truck manufacturing sector. I worked for Volvo. Yea ( the safety people) Remember the Volvo commercial hoax? Anyway back to the subject. Much much time was spend during ***embly and inspection after ***embly of the area called (Rubbing and Chaffing). Where much care was taken in making sure the fuel and electrical weren't running together or rubbing. Along with electrical and fuel lines rubbing areas that would chaff the lines. The vibration of a vehicle over time will wear through insulation and hoses. Just be careful at every edge along with running through body and frame holes(using grommets) using heat insulation at heated areas and using some cool looking conduit for running wires and lines. Don't expose your wires for possible failures. Even after knowing all of this, I still had an electrical short at my front parking lights that heated the wire all the way back to the fuse panel. Don't rely on fuse panels to save you. Wire it right...and park by a fire station.
Must be an olds thing...Low&slow's, Denise's and my 56 Olds convertible smoked. I was 16, had just got home to my parent's house after my very first Road Trip by myself. I had about 1/2 hour to get showered and get to work. I slid the ragtop to a stop in the parent's gravel driveway and ran into the house. I was in the shower when I heard a horn honking. I pulled the window curtain back to look oustide and there was my red and white Olds with smoke pouring through the hood cracks, horn honking, headlights going off and on and the power windows moving up and down... I leaped into my shorts and ran outside, flipped up the hood to give the smoldering wire loom plenty of oxygen. It burst into flame and I used my wet towel to put out the flames and then [don't EVER do this, boys and girls] I grabbed the wire loom with my bare 16 year old hands. YYEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!.By now, the battery had gone dead and the fire stopped but not before I got the **** burned outa my hands. The hot wire between the ign. switch and the voltage regulator had rubbed against a sharp edge in the firewall where someone had failed to replace a rubber grommet. The red hot wire in the 156 wire loom caught all the rest of 'em on fire.. I repaired the damage and bought a new regulator but I never found the cause of the problem until I got sick of buying generators and regulators. I pulled the engine out to go into a cherry-pie 50 ford 2 door and THEN I saw the frayed, burnt wire...pulled the body into the sage brush and juniper trees where the neighbor kids used it for rifle practice....
Bad luck or not. At least it didn't cook the whole car. About the only thing you can do in that situation is pull the ground off the battery. I had one burn about 6 years ago, running a cheapo amp meter, and a one wire/high zot alternater. Not a good combo. Was about 3 blocks from the house, a drove it in, had to stick my head out the window (late at night and cab full of smoke)Fireball Roberts style. Cooked the dash, and everything out to the battery. I carry a Halon extinguisher these days. if it don't make ay dirty it aint yours
I read somwhere,that ALL electrical stuff operates off of SMOKE....... You let the SMOKE out,and the **** don't work no more....
wow, that ****s. really scary. another reason not to let- i mean "make"- your wife drive the Olds. definitely mount the fire extinguisher on the a-pillar- Autozone style.
When I was in high school my friend Nick and I built a firebird for him (hopin for high 12's street racer), well it was plagued with all kinds of trouble the whole way, shoulda taken it as an "Omen" or something like that, but we didn't. Well after MUCH ******** we finally get it to the point where we can fire it up and break it in. So it's at his Grandmas house, and we went up there after school to work on it. It's got open headers (the ones that point mostly straight down), and the timing's off a little, so we got flame throwers. Shouldn't be a problem, but it ends up setting some leaves under the car on fire ( we had to push it outta the garage so his ***hole uncle could use it... he never did, just wanted to make things worse on us). Well the garage is locked ( I can see a fire extinguisher through the window, but the garage is SECURE, no breakin in), the house is locked, and it's early fall so the garden hose is put away. We dump a gallon of antifreeze and a 2 liter of mountain dew on it, and the fire's out.... WHEW! Get her fired back up, and apparently the fire had melted the insulation off of some wires, cuz we get an under dash fire!! No phone... No water.... No extinguisher... I run 500 ft to the neighbors house, he wont call the Fire Dept, cuz he is "in the middle of a very important call" he'll call when he's "done" So I run back to the car, just as the back float bowl explodes... That was pretty damn loud...Nick's freakin out... and the fire continues... The battery (rear mount) explodes (OH ****!!!), and then the 15 gallons of racing gas in the tank go. You'd think thay exaggerate when they show cars blow up in the movies.... nope! It was so hot, that you could see the fire moving THROUGH the door! The fire dept shows up after a while, and put it out. The heat caved the roof in, the gl*** was all in puddles on the floor, the tires were puddles on the ground, and it burned all the siding off of the garage (radiant heat, not actual fire), good thing it was a block building! We managed to salvage the long block... that's it. Now I have 2 fire extinguishers in the garage and one in the hot rod!
hey donnie your kinda like me...leave it till its to late haha..good thing it was a small fire!!i'd hate to see you lose the olds man..that would ****....craig
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