Minnesota Focus Owners Club

At about 6pm tonight i witnessed the burning of an ALL ORIGINAL 1970 Dodge Challanger with a 440 SIX PACK. It was pulling out of my father inlaws garage with no exhaust and it just started on fire. My husband and I tried to help his dad put out the flames and by the time we got them put out alot was melted and the fire had made it's way into the dash. I will be posting picks when I take them tomorrow during the daylight. Have no picks of it burning because I was too busy to stop and take any. My husband and I had to go to the ER to get checked out because we refused to let the car burn we took in alot of smoke and had a hard time breathing. Now we are ok but still hard to breath. Like I said we will post pics soon. Hope we can restore it, it's what I was looking forward to inheriting.

ouch. that sucks, what triggers the fire? at least it wasnt totally burned, would of spread to the seats and that wont be pretty...

oh damn.... good thing noone go hurt. at least you tried. i know a dude that his garage started on fire with his 4x4 vette in there. he had ot hooked up to his truck with a chain to pull it out and somthing melted on the door and it slammed down. is there insurance?

Ouch, Thats too bad. Fire damage is going to be tough on a unibody car like that.

You said no exhaust, you mean open headers or exhaust manifolds?

Any number of things can cause a fire in an old car.

Dam Jen! sorry to hear.

Monkey Gein wrote:oh damn.... good thing noone go hurt. at least you tried. i know a dude that his garage started on fire with his 4x4 vette in there. he had ot hooked up to his truck with a chain to pull it out and somthing melted on the door and it slammed down. is there insurance?

Yes there is insurance....thankfully!!

And To Answer Your Question Steve- manifolds

Not posotive still what started the fire since it was mostly in the back of engine along the fire wall we are thinking possible fuel leak from rear carb but this yet to be for sure.

CrazySVTChick wrote: And To Answer Your Question Steve- manifolds

Not posotive still what started the fire since it was mostly in the back of engine along the fire wall we are thinking possible fuel leak from rear carb but this yet to be for sure.

If you had open manifolds then thats the source of your fire, if you've ever fired up a big old V8 with open manifolds you'll see.

Those things will shoot a foot of pure flame out of the manifolds and anything flammable near by is going to burn.

glad to hear no human damge happened, as for the car, its a car. the bad thing is that with one less on the market the price just went up on the rest of them good thing it was a dodge/moparts product, it woulda went up in smoke sooner or later. i have a deep seated hatered for mopars, granted its a love hate love type deal, but to agree with steve a 440 wiffda six pac and open manifolds, a rich carb will make that into a flame thrower, the fact it went into the dash tells me that there was a hole in the FIREWALL or started the carpet a blaze ...........why were you pulling a unfinished car out anyway, you only do that to done cars.

focinite wrote:deal, but to agree with steve a 440 wiffda six pac and open manifolds, a rich carb will make that into a flame thrower, the fact it went into the dash tells me that there was a hole in the FIREWALL or started the carpet a blaze

It could also have been any rubber parts in that general vicinity under the hood, We fired up a buddies built small block chevy in his 4X4 once with open manifolds and it made a pretty light show.

Open long tube headers are safer but you can still get flames if you rev it up.

i once wired a msd wrong and it make lighting jump from the headers to the starter ground and started a fire. one time i was diagnosing a lean code on a 4.0 exploder with brake clean( you know to watch pids) didnt know it had a open plug wire till all my arm hair and the cars vacume lines were gone

FORDSVTPARTS wrote:

CrazySVTChick wrote: And To Answer Your Question Steve- manifolds

Not posotive still what started the fire since it was mostly in the back of engine along the fire wall we are thinking possible fuel leak from rear carb but this yet to be for sure.

If you had open manifolds then thats the source of your fire, if you've ever fired up a big old V8 with open manifolds you'll see.

Those things will shoot a foot of pure flame out of the manifolds and anything flammable near by is going to burn.

As far as we knew there wasn't any fluid leaks near the manifold or under the manifold.

focinite
Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 12:27 pm

Re: Burning Car!!
glad to hear no human damge happened, as for the car, its a car. the bad thing is that with one less on the market the price just went up on the rest of them good thing it was a dodge/moparts product, it woulda went up in smoke sooner or later. i have a deep seated hatered for mopars, granted its a love hate love type deal, but to agree with steve a 440 wiffda six pac and open manifolds, a rich carb will make that into a flame thrower, the fact it went into the dash tells me that there was a hole in the FIREWALL or started the carpet a blaze ...........why were you pulling a unfinished car out anyway, you only do that to done cars.

It was being pulled out so it could be loaded on a trailer and brought to a shop to have a custom exhaust installed.

focinite wrote:i once wired a msd wrong and it make lighting jump from the headers to the starter ground and started a fire. one time i was diagnosing a lean code on a 4.0 exploder with brake clean( you know to watch pids) didnt know it had a open plug wire till all my arm hair and the cars vacume lines were gone

Bright , j/k

closetfordfan wrote: As far as we knew there wasn't any fluid leaks near the manifold or under the manifold.

I figured that, what I meant was that the open manifolds would have melted anything in their general vicinity pretty quickly which could have caused any number of leaks which would have fueled the fire.

FORDSVTPARTS wrote:

closetfordfan wrote: As far as we knew there wasn't any fluid leaks near the manifold or under the manifold.

I figured that, what I meant was that the open manifolds would have melted anything in their general vicinity pretty quickly which could have caused any number of leaks which would have fueled the fire.

I knew what you were saying, the car was only running for about 15 sec., but obviously that was long enough. I'm just suprised it can happen that quick:(

It's always possible it was something else, electrical fires can flare up real quick also.

My dad had an engine fire in his race car last year, a float stuck in one of his carbs and overflowed fuel onto the header. It caught fire even with header wrap on the header.

Burnt the paint off the hood, left fender and required a bunch of plumbing but luckily a corner worker was close and they put it our quickly, he didn't even have to use his fire suppresion system.