Carb fire..........bummer

Last Friday is one of the worst days I remember ever. My 66 Chevelle had a carb fire, in the garage, when I started it up. Damage is BAD. My fire extinguisher wasn't enough to put it out, after I pushed it outside the garage. Thank God the fire truck is only 4 blocks away. The biggest damage, believe it or not, is inside the car. Soot from melting plastic makes the windows look like they have limo tint. the right half of the dash is all messed up, the radio, AC ducts, heater control, Vintage Air unit are all melted and running down the dash. The smell is terrible. the hood is warped, the right fender has blistered paint, all the hoses, wires and plastic stuff is melted on the passenger side of the engine.........What a mess. It's insured, but I want to save the car, not have it totalled. Insurance co. said to have it towed in to get an estimate today. Wish me luck, while I'm off the road for a while.
Bill

 

Whew, at least you got it pushed out of the garage and didn't loose it.

These days you can never tell what the insurance companies will do in such a situation but most likely they will offer to pay for the car (total) and sell it back to you meaning you get X$ less than the full payout and end up having to get a rebuilt title on the car when it is repaired.

At any rate good luck and I'm glad the damage wasn't more extensive. It sounds like most of the work is going to be remove the damaged pieces, clean it up and replace them with new pieces outside of some paint work.

 

if it's a nice chevelle than I wouldn't worry about them totaling it.

 

I feel your pain, been there.
Glad you weren't hurt and sounds like the car is not totalled. Good luck.

 

i feel for ya..and its a suckey feeling.
wishing you good luck

 

This sounds like a good time to rebuild the Chevelle and make it better.

 

I drove a tow truck for seven years so I've delt with lots of cars that caught fire. You are right, nothing smells like burnt car.

 

What kind of air cleaner do you have? Or, was it a gas leak on a line?

I know of others that have had a similiar deal, only one lost matching 67 Olds 442 and Cutlass ragtops and the roof off his house. Not to mention the damage inside from smoke and water plus a week in the hospital. The other lost his garage, 39 Merc Coupe and his 55" Ford Pickup, and the garage went had to be replaced.. His tools were in that garage too.

Glad yours wasn't any worse..

 

best of luck Bill. Let us know if ya need a hand

 

yeah, that is a bummer. glad you're smart enough to have insurance. good luck!

 

Unless you already have the title, then the title will not change.

 

mine caught fire as i was driving .. scary . luckily i knew of an extingsher in the shop i was at and ran like ive never an before to grab it .. the whole thing was caught on security cameras . only major damage was to the hood. paint bubbled up and after it hardened it cracked .

 

I bet they will total it , its got to be an insane amount of work to try and repair a burnt up car. Unless its ultra rare , get another one and call it done. Sorry about your loss.

 

Well, I don't know how to post pictures on here, but I can e-mail them to someone if they know how to post. With the doors and hood closed, the car doesn't look bad. The hood is only a little warped. The only paint damage is the hood and right fender. That is, until you open the hood. Everything from the carb to the right fender is melted or missing from the firewall the the AC compressor. Inside, other than smoke and soot damage, the damage is to the dash and firewall. The center and right AC vent are MIA, the radio face is melted, the heater control is melted, the glove box door is open, and oozing cold plastic fronm the glove box liner. The AC in dash unit case is melted into the carpet on the floor.
I'm thinking..........remove hood and engine.........remove entire interior including dash. Replace dash, clean and paint engine compartment, install new under dash and forward engine harness and light harness, replace engine and interior........and drive it. I know that's oversimplifying it a lot........but, come on, I hunted for that car for 17 years, and took 9 years to finish it. I'm the second owner, it's a rust free car, and I built it my way once........why not twice?

 

You, sir, have the EXACT correct attitude on this! I couldn't have written a cheerier outlook for you. Very good.

And I can make you feel a little better about it, too. I know a guy who was tuning his Chevelle in an apartment parking lot in Florida, and was inside the car. It backfired, the top of the carb was burning, he didn't realize it, but the guy walking by on the sidewalk did and immediately rushed to put out the flames by picking up handfulls of sand and throwing them on the burning carb...that was, of course, sitting on top of a running big block.
Kinda hard to kick a guy in the nuts when he thinks he just saved your car from burning to the ground.

-Brad

 

The insurance co. will probably total it but as I understand it, the owner has first option to buy it back for 10% of insured value. The laws may vary from state to state. I'm sure there is an agent on here that knows. Just keep the original title. Just curious, what kind of carb? By the way, don't leave it anywhere, you will have to pay storage for that. Is it a SS car with original hood? They were never straight from the factory.

 

Storage builds up quickly. Impound on my daughters car she wrecked was $25 a day this weekend. I don't know what body shop estimate deals are, but by the time I got it home on a roll back it set me back $300.

I hate to hear it man, good thing you could get it out of the garage. I talked to a guy with a late model F150 that burned his house down from a bad ignition switch, woke up in the middle of the night and his house was on fire. I think you will save it. Don't count on insurance too much, they are slithering around responsibility these days. You may want to retain an attorney just in case.

 

Keep us in the loop on what the insurance co. does. I'd like to see how they deal with a "specialty" car. Mike

 

Sounds like you did some hustling saving the car at all. It really doesn't take very long before the fire is out of control on a car.

You know what the car is insured for, that would be the "totaled" price on a car insured as a classic. Where ever it gets towed to for the estamate, be sure it gets towed back home, perferably towed in, estamate written, towed home, all in a few hours, same day.

I've repaired burned cars, your thought process is about right. Might not be a bad idea to look inside the engine too, if there was that much heat involved. Gasket sets are cheap, if all is well. Hopefully the glass is still good, that adds up pretty fast. Good luck on your repair. Gene

 

Speaking of which, I recommend "special" insurance on a finished car.
YOU determine the value (within reason), and "suspend" the liability portion
when not in use (winter) to save premiums. Cost is surprisingly reasonable.

Standard carriers are merely licensed extortionists!

 

That really sucks Bill!

Best of luck to ya and dont take any shit from the insurance guys, NONE!

Make 'em be good to ya! That's what you pay 'em for

 

"Hagerty" helped me with no questions asked once. They are great!

 

How tight are you with your insurance agent? a few years ago I was driving my pops '63 vw single cab truck down the freeway when the fuel line came off the carb caught the engine on fire and burned the back half of the truck pretty bad, we had restored it maybe 2yrs. before this happened, long story short we talked to the agent and got it repaired because the damage was less than 80 persent of the value of the truck.
so talk to your agent especially if your car has full coverage. just my .02
Brian.

 

what air filter was on it?

after a few close calls, i've learned that one extinguisher is rarely enough, keep a few big ones in the shop/garage, and at least one in each car, two is even better.

twice in the last year my girlfriend had carb fires, both my fault because both times the vehicle had NO air filter on the carb. the first time she saw smoke, and did the right, but messy, thing and grabbed an extinguisher and put it out. after that i schooled her on the better way to put out a carb fire, by cranking the engine over with the throttle held open to suck the fire in, she did that the second time. i could have had a disaster had i not had the right safety equipment close by.

 

Bill,
Sorry to hear about the Chevelle. Let me know how things work out and if there is anything I can do o help.

 

Geez..you got mail

 

I saw a completely restored 67 ss chevelle straight outta the paint booth lose its driverside tire going 50 mph. I stopped to help the guy, he was going to get the headliner put in. Thrashed the front fender back to door not to mention underneath.

 

lets see some pictures. someone help him out with posting, he already offered to email them to someone.
Im very sorry to hear about your ride. I dont care if its a pre-64 or not, Im a lover of ALL cars.
Im more curious than anything to see what kind of damage a carb fire would do. Ive always wondered. A picture says a thousand words!
Thanks and good luck with the rebuild!

 

The air filter was on the bench. I had fired it up, and was going to put the filter on, close the hood and put it on the lift for an oil change. The fire was actually on the side of the carb, by the fuel inlet, if I had to guess.
My agent has been great. Actually, the company has been great. The shop that painted the car a couple of years ago has already told us they don't charge storage (and the owner has been a friend for 10-15 years). The insurance company had the shop send a wrecker for it yesterday afternoon, after seeing pictures I e-mailed to them yesterday morning.
I really think it looks worse than it is. If the hood, engine and interior is out, it would look a lot better. We'll see. I think I'm lucky it is a popular car, and just about anything can be ordered for it. I've located another AC dash, and I can get a reproduction hood, if I can't locate a new one. Every part of the interior is reproduced, most in a kit, like I did last time. Every part of the AC needs replaced, but that was a Vintage Air unit anyway.
I'm feeling a little better about this.
As far as the title goes, I don't think I get to keep the title on a total, I think I have to surrender it and they replace with a salvage title when I buy it back. I'll keep you all posted. Thanks for the soothing words, guys. It helps.
Bill

 

Rebuild her !! Youve done it once , you can do it again !!

Sorry for the damage to your ride, hope you can get her fixed soon !!

Rat