A sad reality...FIRE

39portlander

39portlander

Well-known member
Got this from a co-worker, A finished 38 plymouth on it's shakedown drive. The left rear wheel stripped off the lugnuts and ruptured the fuel tank. I'm keeping a fire extinguisher in my cab, a very sad ending:(
 

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Terrible loss, can't just run down to the car store & replace that one. Was anyone hurt?
Gary.
 
i heard he spent 10 years on the restoration,only to have this happen on its first time out very sad
 
Sad:( Brings to mind a similar situation some years ago when a group spent several years and lots of $$$$ restoring an intact B-29 somewhere in the arctic where it had gone down during the war. When it was finished and they tried to fly it out off the ice, bouncing caused gas in the "Little Joe" APU to leak and catch fire. It quickly spread and the ship was a total loss after all that work. Fortunately, everyone got out OK.
 
We tend to think of events like this in terms of the loss of material "things".
To hell with the car, the real loss becomes a great deal more personal if you think of the guy who built it.
 
4dFord/SC said:
Sad:( Brings to mind a similar situation some years ago when a group spent several years and lots of $$$$ restoring an intact B-29 somewhere in the arctic where it had gone down during the war. When it was finished and they tried to fly it out off the ice, bouncing caused gas in the "Little Joe" APU to leak and catch fire. It quickly spread and the ship was a total loss after all that work. Fortunately, everyone got out OK.
Click to expand...


I remember a documentary on that B-29. Made you want to cry all that time and effort to fly that thing home and watch it burn to absolutely nothing.
 
This story has got some legs and it is starting to take on some embellishments. Sad none the less.

The best part (not for the car) is that the owner was okay!

The lugs sheared/striped on a wheel adapter and the wheel fell off! Dragging the poly-tank on the pavement at 55mph. He was just barely able to get out of the car before it was engulfed in flames.

Original story on the hamb from the guy that owned the car.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=585451

The previous owners post on it.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=586035
 
I hope that the owner remembers who he bought the wheel adapter from (and the gas tank). Thank goodness he's around to do so.

It's good to remember that there is often a big gulf between the metallurgy of 'modern' aftermarket parts and OEM parts and there's no one looking over the shoulder of the makers of those in the first category to prevent that.
 
It is a good thread to bring up. Safety and part reliability. My response to this thread was to add information to how this happened.

I had to re-read the threads. As my statement that the tank dragged was what the owner thought had happened. Later in the thread he remembered the wheel flopping around in the wheel well before it shot out passing him at 50mph. The wheel ripped the gas filler off that's in the wheel well. The poly tank was actually not a problem.

From the post.
It seems the rear lug bolts on the drivers side sheared off of the wheel adapter, dropping the car to the pavement, which ripped off the gas filler which is inside the rear fender (full tanks of gas) and when the STEEL hit the pavement it created sparks... the picutres tell the rest of the story....
 
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DavidG said:
I hope that the owner remembers who he bought the wheel adapter from (and the gas tank). Thank goodness he's around to do so.

It's good to remember that there is often a big gulf between the metallurgy of 'modern' aftermarket parts and OEM parts and there's no one looking over the shoulder of the makers of those in the first category to prevent that.
Click to expand...

My original fuel tank has the outlet (fuel line) located at the bottom. If that line were severed the entire tank would drain. I noticed that aftermarket tanks available for my car have the line at the top of the tank. No doubt an improvement, although fuel tank protection was not a primary part of the design of my '46.
 
Funny, my immediate thought was "wheel adapter". They should really never be used. They are always a problem....
 
While there are poor quality wheel adapters, no doubt, I read through both threads twice, and the gentleman's last statement was that the failure was not the adapter or the adapter's bolts.

Rather it was the axle bolts. He earlier said the lug nuts came off. If both these observations are valid, then It appears the adapter was not properly secured (torqued) onto the axle.
 
Fire, to an old car guy and his car, should be at the top of his concern list. I buy, and carry, a large dry powder fire extinguisher in each of my cars and I have several in my shop ready for use(I hope never). I also have battery cutoff switches on each car, too. Invest in a good heavy duty one, too. I recently had an electrical fire under the hood on my 34 and the battery cutoff switch saved the car.
 
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