Driving to work this morning when I started to smell some gas. First I thought from the car in front of me, but as that car pulled off I could still smell the gas. I decided to pull over to take a look, but before I could get to the shoulder, flames were coming from the under the hood. I slid to a stop, bounded from the car and grabbed my extinguisher, but those home depot extinguishers are only good for about 10 seconds.

I grabbed my laptop, my toolkit and my lunch, stepped back at watched two years of effort and 15K of add-ons burn to the ground. I don’t know what caused the leak. I recently had the car towed and my release fork replaced. They pressured washed under the car before they replaced the release fork and removed the tranny, but it seems unlikely that that ruptured the fuel lines. Especially since I’d driven the car 3 days since I got it back.

I just wanted to thank everyone on the board for all the great advice and the wealth of information in all the threads. It made all the knuckle busting and long nights a lot easier. When I started this project, I made a deal that this would be the last hurrah for this type of rebuild. So now it’s done.

It’s amazing how many people saw it burning at work. South bond I-15 between Clairmont Mesa and Balboa exits in San Diego. “Was that your car?”

Kitchen remodel up next….let the negotiations begin.

Wish me luck.

 

WOW that is crazy. Sorry for your loss man, I couldn't imagine standing there watching my car burn.

 

sorry to hear.

Anything in it still good? Was it just an under-hood fire, or did the WHOLE car burn?

 

Sorry for you loss ! Sounds like you had a large personal investment in the car.

 

Damn, somehow, I feel your pain. Sorry and keep your head up, I guess it could've been a lot worse.

 

Damn, not a good deal. Looks like you had a nice setup. Good luck.

 

Thats terrible. You just made me decide to get a fire extinguisher for my car!!

 

Me too! I have one in the boat and I never thought of getting one for the car but I will now. I guess I better get a big one to be sure to get the fire out. How big was the one you had the didn't get the job done?

 

i have two in my car. One mounted on the hump in between the back seats, and one on the passenger side floor

 

I def feel you on this bro. I was driving one time and my car randomly caught fire one time. Most definetely one of the top 3 scariest moments in my life, especially since it caught fire at the gas tank. On top of that, I didn't have an extinguisher, I had to run and grab a bucket of water from a pizza shop...I remember standing looking at it like everything I do turns to crap no matter how hard I try, then it was like ohh crap its on fire!!! Lol.... Sorry to hear though again man, it def seemed like a nice setup

 

Same one I keep in my kitchen.

Thanks everyone for the sentiment. I could have probably done a better job with the extinguisher, but there was a sense of panic on my part.

 

Car burned for about 45 minutes. It was unrecognizable when the fire department finally put it out.

 

block or anything still good?

 

At one point I just stopped looking at the whole thing. It's possible the blocks good be salvaged but the insurance company has the car now. I'm not going to make any attempt to buy it back.

 

damn dude I feel your pain.... while it wasnt my car I did put alot of wrench time into it, my buddies did the same thing, and the little fire extinguister didnt do jack... Ive always ran one about the size inthat picture and it put out a mustang that was on fire the last time I was at the strip. after seeing this though I think im going to up it to two!

What did your setup look like before? post up some pics and we'll have a moment of silence for it....