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NC mountain weather was ridiculously warm, and no fun playing in muddy snow so with several days of rain behind to wash the salt off the roads I took the wife on a drive to the top of Grandfather Mountain. She wanted to hike the grandmother trail which is off of the "Mile high bridge lower lot".
No traffic in front of me so I took the ascent at a brisk pace. Driving past the Forest Gump curve the transmission felt a little funny but not alarmingly so. I got to the grandmother lot and decided to go into the second (higher) entrance.
Suddenly the engine quit and I notice grey smoke coming out from under the hood on the drivers side. I shut the ignition off, put it in neutral and coasted backwards into the first lot entrance. I pulled my fire extinguisher off the driver's door and opened the hood. No fire, just smoke. And a burning electrical smell.
There was transmission fluid everywhere. I keep a small canvas painters tarp in the trunk so got that out and set it under the leak to absorb most of it. I had a small tool box with me but no towels. A small box of tissues and some Windex. I emptied the tissue box and set to work cleaning the worst area to figure out where the leak was. All the hoses looked OK- tranmission cooler and power steering pump, so I decided it must be the pump seal. Fluid was all over the belts and had spayed all under the hood in line with the pulley. Some of this went all over my ignition box and the wiring and that's probably what had started to catch fire.
I used up the tissues quickly and the empty box was now the receptacle for that. I used windex to clean my hands got on the phone to AAA. No signal.
We hiked up to the upper lot and got a signal on the far end, dispatch told up it would be an hour. We waited nearly three hours for the flat bed. Guy was super nice. Hauled the Bird back up to my cabin garage.
Dilute Simple Green in a spray bottle and a paint brush worked well to clean up most of it. Where the smoke penetrated I had to use a higher concentration and a cloth rag. After I got everything cleaned, rinsed and dried I went about trying to figure out what happened.
Sorry no pictures- my hand were greasy and one of my fingers kept bleeding- cut from when I manually released the parking brake.
I had used a short section of hose to go from one transmission cooling line to the radiator fitting and kinked it slightly. the stress on the hose poked a small hose in aimed a spray directly at the power steering pulley. Ignition box dead.
The hose is easy enough to fix if I can't find a 45 degree bent fuel hose I'll cut the steel tube and use a longer hose.
I have been having a nagging ignition issue and I was suspecting the FAST CDI box. I don't think it likes the Pertronix distributor with the Ignitor II module. Now that it's gone I'm going 100% Pertronix, so just ordered a new Second Strike box and Flame Thrower II coil.
No traffic in front of me so I took the ascent at a brisk pace. Driving past the Forest Gump curve the transmission felt a little funny but not alarmingly so. I got to the grandmother lot and decided to go into the second (higher) entrance.
Suddenly the engine quit and I notice grey smoke coming out from under the hood on the drivers side. I shut the ignition off, put it in neutral and coasted backwards into the first lot entrance. I pulled my fire extinguisher off the driver's door and opened the hood. No fire, just smoke. And a burning electrical smell.
There was transmission fluid everywhere. I keep a small canvas painters tarp in the trunk so got that out and set it under the leak to absorb most of it. I had a small tool box with me but no towels. A small box of tissues and some Windex. I emptied the tissue box and set to work cleaning the worst area to figure out where the leak was. All the hoses looked OK- tranmission cooler and power steering pump, so I decided it must be the pump seal. Fluid was all over the belts and had spayed all under the hood in line with the pulley. Some of this went all over my ignition box and the wiring and that's probably what had started to catch fire.
I used up the tissues quickly and the empty box was now the receptacle for that. I used windex to clean my hands got on the phone to AAA. No signal.
We hiked up to the upper lot and got a signal on the far end, dispatch told up it would be an hour. We waited nearly three hours for the flat bed. Guy was super nice. Hauled the Bird back up to my cabin garage.
Dilute Simple Green in a spray bottle and a paint brush worked well to clean up most of it. Where the smoke penetrated I had to use a higher concentration and a cloth rag. After I got everything cleaned, rinsed and dried I went about trying to figure out what happened.
Sorry no pictures- my hand were greasy and one of my fingers kept bleeding- cut from when I manually released the parking brake.
I had used a short section of hose to go from one transmission cooling line to the radiator fitting and kinked it slightly. the stress on the hose poked a small hose in aimed a spray directly at the power steering pulley. Ignition box dead.
The hose is easy enough to fix if I can't find a 45 degree bent fuel hose I'll cut the steel tube and use a longer hose.
I have been having a nagging ignition issue and I was suspecting the FAST CDI box. I don't think it likes the Pertronix distributor with the Ignitor II module. Now that it's gone I'm going 100% Pertronix, so just ordered a new Second Strike box and Flame Thrower II coil.
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