- This topic has 13 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated August 19, 2008 at 11:54 am by
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Tonight I found out that the 43 year old fire extinguisher in my Tiger still works. 🙁 I hadn’t driven it for about a week and a half — the hood was off to have the underside painted. When dad had the car painted once years ago, he never did the underside of the hood and it was tinged brown from age and heat. The hood was reinstalled today, so I took it for a drive after dinner.We went to Sonic, then to a friends’ house and took them each for a short spin about town for fun. Then we visited in their yard for a while. Upon starting up for home, we noticed smoke coming from under the hood, stopped the engine, and opened the newly painted hood. There were flames !! at the carburetor/front of air filter. One small squirt of the extinguisher put it out. The underside of the hood now looks like a burnt marshmallow and the outer hood surface is blistered.
Question is… could the paint be the culprit (my hubby thinks maybe the clearcoat could have melted, dripped and ignited?) or should I be checking for something in the carburetor or elsewhere?
Any help is greatly appreciated,
a very sad Lori -
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Sorry your new paint job was ruined. I had the same thing a while back. It was caused by some flammable plastic tubing catching light, but I dont know what ignited it though.
Yours sounds like a fuel leak problem. Check if theres any wetness around the carb. Check fuel hoses and unions, but a high fuel level in the float chamber is also a common cause of leaks. If its a Holley carb its an easy adjustment, but the original Autolite carb needs to be opened up to reset the level.
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I took off the air cleaner and it looks like it started at the carburetor. Here are some links to pictures.
http://www.geocities.com/brownstownpa/underhoodb.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/brownstownpa/airfilterb.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/brownstownpa/innerpartsb.JPG
http://www.geocities.com/brownstownpa/carb.JPG -
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Get that fire extinguisher recharged, if it’s rechargeable; if not, get a new one. The seal on the extinguisher will leak after it’s used, and you’ll have no pressure if you ever need it again.
You should rebuild the carb to replace all the gaskets, but fires need both a fuel and an ignition source to start – did you have a backfire through the carb from the intake manifold? Check your ignition wire routing (specifically #7 and #8) to make sure you don’t have a situation where crossfires are encouraged. Also check the condition of the plug wires in general, and if they’re old or if you recall ever hearing snapping sounds under the hood when the engine is running, then replace them.
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Thank you to all for your help. My wires are all new, and there were no snapping sounds. The carburetor (the original autolite) will be getting a good going over. (I resized the photo of the carb, but I still don’t get how to cut and paste in this application! — Maybe it’s a Mac thing. Anyway, there’s a link to it.) And I’ll be more cautious about starting a hot engine. The guys in the body shop will wonder why my friend has my hood to paint again! Hopefully the car will be up and running again for Taste of Britain at the end of August. Can’t say this helps convince my hubby or my dad that I should drive it to the United.
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The Tiger is all back together with a shiny white hood. I found nothing wrong with the carburetor or accelerator pump diaphragm — that was new. Several people have suggested that a spark may have ignited hot paint fumes. Who knows, but I hope that never happens again.
I ran the engine in the garage with the hood up last week, and it ran beautifully. Today I drove it without incident. I kept the hood slightly popped just in case, and put it up when I parked in order to vent the heat before the return trip.
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