What do you think happened??

[devdwilson]

Poor Ex.

I was driving to the store behind this Explorer when all of the sudden, it started smoking, and within under a minute, it was up in flames.

The flames got much worse than what you can see from the pic.

I was wondering what was wrong with it that it could have done that?

 

[FROADER]

Cruise Control recall was never done...?

 

[Willard]

Hmmm....maybe he had a bad cruise control switch that didn't get switched with the recall.

That is really sad to see

Edit: Oops, Froader was faster...

 

[little x]

^^That was the first thing I thought as soon as I saw the pic, "Oops, someone didn't do the recall."

 

[Sbyrne97]

hmmm

No its a 95-97 due to the mirror tint and tail lights, so the cruise control might not of been the issue, needless to say i feel bad for the driver

 

[Willard]

Wasn't there also something about a ground or something and a fuel line too?

I think I recall someone else losing their ex from this.

Edit: Nevermind, I was thinking of what happens when you ground a jumper cable to the bracket with the fuel line on an SOHC.

 

[Donner]

No oil changes.

 

[Sams01XplrSprt]

dang did the driver of the explorer survive or what.

 

[section525]

I think I still see him in there on hold with the 911 operator.

 

[devdwilson]

Yeah, everyone was fine from what I could tell.

There were a couple people standing off to the side, I'm assuming the drivers.

(The cruise control was what popped into my head too!)

 

[Donner]

with the door closed... wouldn't ya just jump out and run off? (Hey Sam, pm sent on tires)

 

[devdwilson]

I think I still see him in there on hold with the 911 operator.

Usually that the case, but they got there fast. Guess they had nothing else to do.

 

[devdwilson]

with the door closed... wouldn't ya just jump out and run off? (Hey Sam, pm sent on tires)

You would think, they pulled over at first because it was smoking so I don't think there was a hurry then.

 

[Donner]

In CA, I think it's against the law to leave a burning vehicle. You have to stay inside until firefighters arrive. (Joking! Please run for your life if this happens to you

 

[IZwack]

There is probably an endless list of why this could have happened - but even a bad grounding wire can lead to a fire when for example, the body tries to ground itself to the engine block (which is where the alternator is bolted to and is part of the circuit) because it naturally sits on rubber body mounts.

 

[Donner]

By the color of the flames, you can tell what type of fire this is.

 

[Donner]

Battery exploded?

There is probably an endless list of why this could have happened - but even a bad grounding wire can lead to a fire when for example, the body tries to ground itself to the engine block (which is where the alternator is bolted to and is part of the circuit) because it naturally sits on rubber body mounts.

Hmm...

 

[Essex4x4]

Dam tree huggers

 

[gijoecam]

There is probably an endless list of why this could have happened - but even a bad grounding wire can lead to a fire when for example, the body tries to ground itself to the engine block (which is where the alternator is bolted to and is part of the circuit) because it naturally sits on rubber body mounts.

But, don't the body bolts that run through those bushings conduct electricity? Seems like a half-dozen or so 1/2" bolts should provide sufficient ground, and if they don't, then wouldn't the chassis ground cable?

Funny how every Ford under-hood fire is automatically attributed to the SCDS. As IZ mentioned, there any number of a zillion possible reasons completely unrelated to the speed control that could cause an under-hood fire. There's just no way to tell from the remains of what's left, especially from a grainy cell-phone camera image.

 

[IZwack]

But, don't the body bolts that run through those bushings conduct electricity? Seems like a half-dozen or so 1/2" bolts should provide sufficient ground, and if they don't, then wouldn't the chassis ground cable?

The bushings are two pieces and there is rubber on both sides that sandwich the welded chassis mount.

Its like this:
[body]
[bushing]
[chassis]
[bushing]

With the bolt going through all of those.

Yeah the chasiss ground cable is what its there for but that is a single point of failure and if the ground cable is corroded or whatever else happens to it, then the chance of starting an electrical fire increases significantly.

I've seen this happen on my brother's Suzuki Samurai and maybe half a dozen other people on Pirate4x4 has have witnessed fires caused by improper grounding. But on the Samurai, the two paths the ground was taking was the clutch cable and/or the E-brake cable (depending on which lever was making a complete circuit). When electricity would go through the clutch cable, it would have so much resistance at the cable mount (on the trans) that it snapped two clutch cables on the same day. And when the ground was going through the E-brake cable, it first started smoking and half a minute later, the E-brake cable (which is often coated in undercoating -- which is flamable) was on fire.