Engine Fire 2008 JKUR

Ruvicon

Ruvicon

Member
So I mentioned this morning that I had an engine fire on my way to work this morning. It wasn’t a huge fire, but flames under the hood aren’t a good thing. I quickly extinguished it.

Here’s what it looked once the fire was out (there were no flames in this shot, but the fire extinguisher (FE) media on the hood kinda looks like flames).IMG_8341.JPG

Here it is getting towed home:IMG_8344.JPG

Here’s an under hood shot before blowing out that FE crap:IMG_8355.JPGIMG_8357.JPG

The bulk of the damage appears to be inside of this green circled area. I don’t think it was a fuel line which was melted. IMG_8363.jpg

I really need to inspect the wiring after removing the melted protective wrap to see if the cause was electrical. The ground strap to the hood was fried near the wiring loom running horizontally across the firewall as was the tranny yellow dip stick, plastic fuel line to front on intake and two plastic vacuum lines running left to right near battery box.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to diagnose the cause or who have seen anything like this?






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Check your trans fluid if it's low and brown as hell you could have over heated your trans and it burped onto your headers and well got know the rest. The hood ground strap wouldn't be a concern for the fire it could just cause electrical interference due to static that builds up. No check engine lights or warning chimes before the incident?

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G-mansjk said:
Check your trans fluid if it's low and brown as hell you could have over heated your trans and it burped onto your headers and well you know the rest. The hood ground strap wouldn't be a concern for the fire it could just cause electrical interference due to static that builds up. No check engine lights or warning chimes before the incident?

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Click to expand...



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That blows.. Glad you were not hurt. Hope you find the source. I just recently found that my hood ground strap was just hanging on the fire wall. It appeared to have never been attached to the hood. I attached it to the hood. Hope it's not a problem down the road. Please keep us up to date on your findings.
 
Ruvicon said:
So I mentioned this morning that I had an engine fire on my way to work this morning. It wasn’t a huge fire, but flames under the hood aren’t a good thing. I quickly extinguished it.

Here’s what it looked once the fire was out (there were no flames in this shot, but the fire extinguisher (FE) media on the hood kinda looks like flames).View attachment 324060

Here it is getting towed home:View attachment 324061

Here’s an under hood shot before blowing out that FE crap:View attachment 324062View attachment 324063

The bulk of the damage appears to be inside of this green circled area. I don’t think it was a fuel line which was melted. View attachment 324066

I really need to inspect the wiring after removing the melted protective wrap to see if the cause was electrical. The ground strap to the hood was fried near the wiring loom running horizontally across the firewall as was the tranny yellow dip stick, plastic fuel line to front on intake and two plastic vacuum lines running left to right near battery box.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to diagnose the cause or who have seen anything like this?






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Click to expand...





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Seahawkfan said:
That blows.. Glad you were not hurt. Hope you find the source. I just recently found that my hood ground strap was just hanging on the fire wall. It appeared to have never been attached to the hood. I attached it to the hood. Hope it's not a problem down the road. Please keep us up to date on your findings.
Click to expand...

The ground strap is to discharge static electricity that builds up on the hood. It being detached for a while shouldn’t be a problem.


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I’ve been thinking about the chain of events, first I saw a lot of white smoke coming out the back, then after extinguishing the flames, I saw coolant dripping down over/near the passenger side exhaust. I’m now thinking that a coolant leak on the fairly new heater hoses could have stated this? I’ll look closely at the heater hoses tomorrow. I’ll let you guys know what I find.


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Coolant is not flammable. So that's kind of ruled out. Ground straps are not a issue they are used to keep static down for little things like the radio and to keep static from interfering with the comp. I'd seriously look at the trans first then inspect the fuel rail quick disconnect although after a fire the o-ring and lock tabs are probably screwed any way. But I can just about 100 percent guarantee the ground strap had nothing to do with it unless it somehow locked onto the positive terminal where it would pretty much become a heating element and catch the hood liner on fire but that'd be a 1 in a million shot

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Ruvicon said:
So I mentioned this morning that I had an engine fire on my way to work this morning. It wasn’t a huge fire, but flames under the hood aren’t a good thing. I quickly extinguished it.
Click to expand...

That sucks! What a mess. Glad you’re ok and got it put out quickly!
 
G-mansjk said:
Coolant is not flammable. So that's kind of ruled out. Ground straps are not a issue they are used to keep static down for little things like the radio and to keep static from interfering with the comp. I'd seriously look at the trans first then inspect the fuel rail quick disconnect although after a fire the o-ring and lock tabs are probably screwed any way. But I can just about 100 percent guarantee the ground strap had nothing to do with it unless it somehow locked onto the positive terminal where it would pretty much become a heating element and catch the hood liner on fire but that'd be a 1 in a million shot

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Click to expand...

This

I know it’s tough to tell now but do you see any bare wires (not ground straps) or missing insulation. Any aftermarket wiring that’s routed through the firewall? A lot of people don’t use a rubber grommet where it goes through and tiny vibration and movement scrape the insulation off the wire and shorts it, also any aftermarket wiring thats connected to battery without a fuse at the battery. The only flammable liquids are gas and atf.



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Thanks everyone for your well wishes and support. My insurance deductible is $500, I know I don’t know what caused the fire yet or the total extent of the damage, but the few items that are burnt I don’t believe will add up to that amount.

I was worried that the main harness was toast, but it kinda looks ok. I’ll need to peel off the melted plastic loom for a complete inspection and recover with new loom. Maybe it was my tranny dipstick that popped loose sending ATF on the exhaust??

The fuel rail is completely melted from the middle of the intake and toward the front, but the flames that I saw were all over the firewall and hood insulation. Of course I don’t know, but if the fuel rail leaked under pressure, I’d assume that I’d have a larger fire than I did, so maybe it was collateral damage?

I’ll dig into it more later today, but my F-150 has an intake manifold leak, which I need to fix since that’s what I’ll be driving in the short-term. Ugggggh...


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Well, good news is you have a back up.

I agree with you that the fuel line is probably collateral damage. If it ruptured under pressure, you would have had an inferno.

With the white smoke first, sounding more like transmission related, as others have said.

You were on it to get it put out before it got worse.

Where was your fire extinguisher mounted? Mine is in the back, and I'm thinking that may be too far away in a similar situation.

Best of luck on getting it going.
 
My extinguisher was in the back too. I popped the hood and saw flames and thought, o shit, ran to the back to grab the extinguisher. I used up the entire FE on this small fire. If it had been larger, the Jeep would have burnt to the ground. I’m getting a larger FE this time and considering adding a 2nd


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Ruvicon said:
My extinguisher was in the back too. I popped the hood and saw flames and thought, o shit, ran to the back to grab the extinguisher. I used up the entire FE on this small fire. If it had been larger, the Jeep would have burnt to the ground. I’m getting a larger FE this time and considering adding a 2nd


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Damn, you were quick. Nicely done. Being under pressure changes everything. Still sucks but glad it wasn’t worse. I think I’ll put my FE back in the Jeep.


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I think you’ll be surprised as how fast you’ll be over $500 if you get it taken care of. Labor alone will be that. Paint damage to hood, cracked and brittle plastic, replacement of harnesses etc. might not be a bad idea to get a quote.


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I’m leaning towards having the insurance fix it, but I’m afraid they may total it? It’s a 2008 with 102k miles. I read that other post about the tree harpooning the Jeep and it was totaled. Makes me nervous...


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