The flaming GN Wagon

[Superscan811]

Had a bit of excitement yesterday afternoon going along the M4.
Looked out the rear vision mirror only to see a large cloud of smoke and thought to my self there is some poor bugger with a big problem.
As I slowed down a bit I noticed some smoke was coming out from my bonnet. Looked back and there was now a VERY thick cloud of smoke behind me.

BUGGER.

Killed the engine, pulled off the side of the freeway, in a HUGE cloud of smoke while the cabin filled up with thick smoke.
Popped the bonnet, grabbed the fire extinguisher and water, expecting the worst, and found the engine bay covered in oil and a fire on the exhaust pipes.

Quickly put out the fire.

2 people stopped and one said she had called the fire brigade because she had seen flames coming out from under the car while I was driving.

Oh great.

Check under the car and sure enough there is a few small flames near the back. Put them out.

I had a look in the engine bay and find an oil line had come off and sprayed the entire engine bay with oil, which had luckily only caught light on the exhaust pipes.

As luck would have it, I had a few spray cans of Super Cheap De-greaser in the car, along with several liters of water and a 5L of oil,
so I proceeded to re-attach the oil pipe that has come off, degrease the engine bay and try to maintain the "I don't care what you think of me or my car"
attitude, while all the other motorists pass by in the still quite thick cloud of smoke.

At this time, the fire brigade arrived and inspect the car, checking there are no more fires and take my details.
I let them know what caused the problem while a few other fire brigade members are dumping a whole heap of what looks like saw dust on the long trail of oil which had been pumped out of the engine.

At this time I though it would be a good idea to start the engine, Fire brigade here so if there was little chance the car would go up in flames.
Dumped the 5L of oil in the engine, turned the key and it started, though it was a little smokey for some reason...

Let it idle for a while, trying to burn off a bit of the oil under the car, the fire brigade gave me the all clear so I drove home very sedately.

All in all, not a pleasant experience but it could have been a whole lot worse.

Cheers.

[Sigmaproject]

I have seen lots of dodgy oil fitting in engine bays on this site

My fovorite is a turbo with the oil supply hose secured by a worm drive hose clamp

[Skidmark]

After reading that,I think I will get a fire extinguisher for my car tommorow!

[Superscan811]

My fovorite is a turbo with the oil supply hose secured by a worm drive hose clamp

A little to close to home on that call..

This was the offending clamp that let go.

After reading that,I think I will get a fire extinguisher for my car tommorow!

$25 at Bunnings. Well worth it.
TRUST ME ON THIS..

Cheers.

[stealth]

mate if you can afford the extinguisher
how about some decent speedflow dash fittings there also quite cheap and very effective
then you wont use the extinguisher
cheers stealth

[Sigmaproject]

Found the pic

At least he doubled up on the worm drives



Car looks familiar . He probably has rectified the situation by now.

[Paddles]

that would of been me. it has a braided feed line now.

[panda]

Many years ago I had a new VN wagon as a 'daily'. It went into the local dealer for a routine service, but on the way home I notice a great cloud of smoke billowing out the rear. I immediately stopped, opened the the bonnet to find oil everywhere, mostly all over the exhaust. Eventually traced the leak to the oil filter which, when replaced, had popped the rubber seal out the side when over tightened during the service. After walking to the nearest phone-box (this was before the days of mobile phones) I called the garage, who came out & fitted another oil filter & topped up the oil. Then we took the car back to the workshop where the poor mechanic had to pressure clean the entire engine bay plus the underside of the car. Big mess to clean up.
Moral of story - check & recheck whenever doing work on cars.

Scott - I'm glad it all worked fine in the end.