Well I was working on my wifes 85 GSL this afternoon because it had developed a rough idle. I naturally assumed that a vacuum leak had developed somewhere so with the car idleing I was spraying some carb. cleaner around the vac. lines looking for the suspected leak. I had done this with success in the past. Anyhow, as I sprayed under the carb. from just behind the alt. POOF, the whole top of the engine bursts into flames. YIKES!! Fortunately I had a handy dandy fire extinguisher close at hand and put out the flames before any damages was done. (Then took a few moment to compose myself, go change underware, etc.) Turns out the bad idle was not due to a vacuum leak but was coming from a bad ignition wire on the distributor which was shorting out. The electrical arc had idnited the cab. cleaner fumes. Fortunately the story had a happy ending. I found the source of the rough idle without any damage being done, but would not reccomend using this technique in the future.

 

i never understood why people say to use flammable sprays to find vacuum leaks. "smoke in a can" or the "cigar" trick work fine for me and i dont have to worry about lighting the engine on fire.

sorry to hear you had hose er down with a extinguisher, that **** is a mess to clean up!

 

Never heard of the smoke in a can or cigar trick before. Sounds like a good idea but would you not have to remove the fan to keep from blowing the smoke away before it could be pulled into the vac. leak?

 

Well, you can still say the carb cleaner helped you find the problem.

 

lol

 

Hahaha i did that **** before but i was cleanin my engine with some carb cleaner at night and was using a light to see at night and forgot that this **** was flamable and the light caught the fumes and lit a big *** fire ball that caught me in the face. Caught my *** good but the **** was funny.

 

thats why when i check for leaks every couple of sprays i wave a towel around to stir any settled gasses around and wait a few mins.. between sprays...


i need a extengisher though....if nobody has heard the SC rx'7 guys have had 5 of our cars catch fire in the past 4 months....all being VERY seroius!!!!
heres pics of one guys....