My car just caught fire moments ago....I put out the flame and I'm not entirely sure what happened. It seems as though one of the AIR hoses touched the manifold or something so a small fire lit up in that area. By the way I have a carbed 82...Can someone here help me diagnose the problem. My car still runs and I was wondering if it would be safe to drive still? Here are some pics Thanks in advance.

 

2

 

You should check to see that you aren't leaking fuel.

The hose may have been old and dry, replace all of the rubber under your hood and make sure nothing is touching the manifolds. Keep the engine bay as clean as possible.

I think everyone should have a small fire extinguisher in thier car, they're cheap and could save you lots of trouble from a fire.

Almost any car can catch fire for any number of reasons, no one is really safe.

Stay on top of the electrical connections too, if you smell burning, track it down, a bad connection will build up heat and can ignite the plug, insulation or anything around it if it gets hot enough.

Thirdgens have plenty of room to mount a fire extinguisher on the passenger's side floor area, or you could leave it in the trunk.

 

Look at the break lines, break fluid burns almost as good as gas, if not better, also I had an engine fire in my old T/A, it was caused by the ECM tacking a crap and retarding the timing as far as it could, the exauast manifolds got cherry red and lit off the oil that leaks from all s/b valve covers, it burned the wire harness to the point the insurance combany totaled it out, I bought it for $500 + new tires and got $2800 for it (and yes the insurance comp. new how mutch I bought it for, they said it was the "value of the car, not how much I paid for it"), also get that fire ext. powder out of the engine bay, it eats alumminun and paint- verry quickly

 

I think it did end up being the brake fluid....earlier that day I had just added more brake fluid and I guess I didn't close one of the four clips good enough because it was off when I popped the hood. I'm guess some fluid leaked and caught fire due to the manifold and then the hoses caught fire after that. I guess it didn't have time to catch fire while I was on the road because the fumes didn't have time to build up on the freeway and once I parked the fumes built up under the hood and ignited. lucky I caught it in time.

Thanks guys...now my question is, some of those smog control hoses and vacuum lines were burnt...is there a set of them I can buy or do I buy them individually, basically what do I need to buy now to replace my hoses?

 

look in the pic, the brake fluid resivoir is off

 

Yeah I caught that...that is what I said most likely caused it if you read my last post. Thanks though