MY JEEP CAUGHT ON FIRE AFT ER TFI

[MOJO II]

Thank you for all of your ealier help. I did find that I had one plug wire crossed. Went for a test drive and it ran great after the TFi upgrade. 2 hours earlier I cranked it up to go to the store and before I could get out of the drive way I had a MAJOR FIRE under the hood. 30 minutes late and a burt hood (the paint was perfect)the fire is out and the hood is weilded shut. Does anybody know what in the heck might have happened? I guess I'll try to find a way to open the hood in the moring and see what all is burt..I have a feeling it will not be pretty. Any advise would be great.

[Mike D]

Oh...****.........

Dont like to hear that....iv goten a tfi recently..and im planning on puting it on....hope i have better luck......because i only have one road worthy rig......

Sorry to hear you had a nasty fire like that.......though the whole thing didnt go up, thats a good thing

[BIG BAD JON]

Man, I am so sorry to hear that! A fire in my Jeep is one of my worst fears. I pray that you find it isnt burnt all that bad.

[nightflyers]

Sorry to here about the fire. My truck caught fire a while back. Not fun.

[M1Garandfan]

I had a fire under my hood once, The pressure side power steering hose sprung a leak and sprayed my exhaust manifold, boy was that fun. 5:30 AM on the high school track on football home coming day!

[MOJO II]

Thanks guys. I will try to get the hood open sometime today. I'll let you know how ugly it is. All I could think of was is it going to explode...now all I can think of is my hood's burt and I wonder how I'll figure out how to replace all the burt up wires.

I'll hang in there though.

[mccullough_89_GW]

yah there are a number of wires that run accross the top of your engine...that are completely live UNFUSED straight to the ignition...the insulation frequently melts aof them after the years under the hood and you have an exposed live wire...sitting above a very large ground...
mine almost caught fire inside from a bad short like this...but i pulled the battery in time....before it went up just melted my wiring harness..
take a look under your dash...see how those harness(s) look....Man I feel for yah...I rewired alot of my dash after my almost fire....

I'll be buying a fire extnguisher here this week....

too many reasons to have one with these beasts..
good luck
kel

[MOJO II]

Well I can't get the hood open to see the damage. While tring to pull the inside release I broke the handle. Now I've tried pulling hard with vise grips. It appears the latch must have got crispy. ANY ideas on how to open the hood now? Can I get through the grill maybe to the hood pull cable????
Any help would be appreciated.

[leila]

MOJO II,
You should be able to open the hood by pressing the release lever that is just to the right of center of the hood (you can see it through the space between the hood and your grill.) Use a long (really long) screwdriver to push it - the latch should release and then you can open the hood.
I had an engine fire in my '87 GW - thank god I pulled over and disconnected the battery and put the fire out. Luckily, I had to replace just a few wires and had no permanent damage. Good luck.

leila

[Tourettes]

I dont leave home without it! Its one of those Halon type. I got it at a aviation parts store.

www.tourettes.4t.com.images.fireex.jpg

could it be that the rubber bumpers are melted to the top of the hood? I found one burned up in a junkyard, and couldnt get the hood open.I had an friend hold the lever and i kicked it open. the rubber bumpers had melted to the underside of the hood.
good luck and sorry to hear.

[ August 19, 2002, 08:06 PM: Message edited by: Tourettes ]

[davez26]

Super Bummer! I had a litle engine fire and I have a good idea what caused it, but I will never know for sure. This happened after I swapped manifolds. It ran for a couple of days before the fire. My coil feed wire fried back to the junction @ the firewall, and the other end fried out to the solenoid. The other circuits connected to this also crisped some. Here's the really bad news: If it truly is an electrical fire, a good part if not every other wire in the underhood harness next to the effected circuit may be trash as well from the high heat on the insulation. Prod poke and tug every suspect wire. If every wire at one point in the harness is burned, it may be better to replace the whole underhood harness with a transplant than to have 18 splices in one spot. The other thing that stinks with an electrical fire is that it may have damaged some of the underdash harness as well. When the wires melt and ground out, they send electricity all sorts of crazy places. My coil fire melted the terminals in my ignition switch and the output for the right rear turn signal @ the column connector. I am sorry to hear about your fire and wish you all of the best.

[shredby4]

Mojo II ,
I'm sorry to hear about the fire. I'm glad you are okay though. Please let us know what went wrong as soon as you know.
I'm thinking of adding a quick disconnect for my battery... Maybe all of us should! I found a couple different types in Jegs and Summit catalogs. I like the ones with the really long handles...

[MOJO II]

Thanks for the comments. I got the hood open and it doesn't seem to be that bad after all. Afew $50.00 plug wires got burn, the cable to the carb, a few vaccum hoses, maybe a few wires by the distibutor, air intake, and a hood release cable. I'm not real sure what happened still. I'm out of town for a few days and will dig into it over the weekend. So far it seems to be mainly isolated to the drivers side by the carb.???

[65 Kaiser]

burst fuel line is first guess. Glad to hear the damage is minor(relatively speaking).

With regards to the unfused wires under the hood. I just rewired my YJ after swapping in an AMC 360, and put fusible links on all the battery feeds. I find it suprising that it wasn't done like this from the factory if that is the case?

[ August 25, 2002, 06:28 PM: Message edited by: Flip1YJ ]