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So is my car the only one that does this?

G

gulfblue1387

New member
So I'm driving home in my 98 gtp today and I'm on my road when I see my neighbor so I stop and back up to say hi and then he points out that my car was overheating so I look forward and there's steam coming from under the hood, so I go home and pull into the driveway (two houses down) and turn the car off and open the hood. To my surprise there's flames shooting out from the rear manifold :th_skull: so I ran across the yard to get a bucket of water and put the fire out and then I disconnected the battery and a puddle of coolant started to form under the car. huh coolant... coolant doesn't burn, does it?:confused: so now I have a mystery leak in my coolant system that could have potentially caught my car on fire. Oh yeah and its due for inspection on Monday! So, has this happened to anybody else here?
 


My guess is that the rear valve cover gasket is bad and leaked oil onto the rear exhaust manifold, which then caught fire and melted the rear coolant elbow which is plastic.
 
Replace both valve covers, and put in aluminum coolant elbows and call it done. Prior to the fire did you smell burning oil when you stopped at stop lights?

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Thanks for the info and I did find a pin hole in one of the heater hoses right before it goes into the heater core im not sure but im thinking that it happened right before I got home and it started spraying on the exhaust manifold causing steam looking like it was over heating and after I shut the car off the water evaporated and the sticky crap in the antifreeze caught that's all I could think of. I replaced the heater hose and started it, ran it to temperature and there was nothing wrong, even drove it around for about an hour and no fires. The valve cover gaskets look like they might be leaking slightly but nothing super concerning haha
 
How many miles are on the VC gaskets. They need to be replaced if they leak. You will burn your car to the ground.
 
gulfblue1387 said:
Thanks for the info and I did find a pin hole in one of the heater hoses right before it goes into the heater core im not sure but im thinking that it happened right before I got home and it started spraying on the exhaust manifold causing steam looking like it was over heating and after I shut the car off the water evaporated and the sticky crap in the antifreeze caught that's all I could think of. I replaced the heater hose and started it, ran it to temperature and there was nothing wrong, even drove it around for about an hour and no fires. The valve cover gaskets look like they might be leaking slightly but nothing super concerning haha
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Do any hard accel or braking bet it will shoot oil out and catch again. For the cheap price and few hour it takes to replace them I would take a Saturday and go for it. Especially if they are stockers.

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and that would be the exact reason there's a fire extinguisher behind the seat lol, and I have no idea how old the gaskets are most likely original and its going to need a lim soon also so I will probably just do it all at once as soon as I can get the money haha
 
I had time to pull into the driveway, park, open the hood, run 150 feet to get a bucket, fill it with about a quart of water run back to the car and put it out if it was fuel the car would have been gone in flames before I even got into the driveway. The fire wasn't very big it only took that tiny bucket to put it out and I also did some research and as it turns out antifreeze (which is what im running being from new England) will burn and has a flash point of around 230* F witch could be completely plausible. The heater hoses seem to be very weak and soft when they should be firm, I wouldn't doubt that pin hole I found was formed just from old age.
 
Leaky fuel rail doesn't always leak, the fuel pools up and I bet it rolled off onto the rear manifold.

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