2001 v10 Lariat with 215,000 miles. Hauling 5 tons of gravel in my 18' goose neck dump trailer. 25k total weight. Backing up a hill down the long driveway...smoke...oil pouring on the y pipe...fire...smoke extinguisher. Towed it to the dealer. Will get a verdict on Monday. Insurance will cover fire damage. I'm guessing a blown rear main.

Meanwhile...it's a 15 year old truck. Anyone have any thoughts on what you think it's worth spending to put it back together vs buying another truck?

I usually like to buy 8-10 year old trucks...run em until it gets to the point where replacement is cheaper/saner option.

-Mac

P.S. You do have a fire extinguisher in your truck, right?

 

Assuming an automatic transmission, most likely, the transmission overheated and puked fluid out it's front seal and the fluid caught on fire. Next time you have to back a heavy load up hill, put it in 4LO if you have 4WD, your 4R100 will thank you for doing that.

 

I do

Yup, sounds like the tranny overheated.

 

So new seal and fluid or the tranny is cooked? Or all speculation until the dealer comes back and tells me?

And if I am having the dealer replace the front seal...what else should they do when they are in there...?

-Mac

 

It's speculation at this point based on what you've told us.

You'll need to see what the damage tally is once it gets inspected. Chances are, the transmission seal healed itself when it cooled down (excluding the fire) and won't absolutely require replacement. If it does, the transmission has to be pulled to address it.

 

Same year, same engine here, and mine caught on fire twice--both times when towing my 5th wheel trailer and slowly maneuvering back and forth trying to get it parked for camping.

If it weren't for the poor choice for placement of that Y-pipe then it wouldn't of caught fire.

 

Ok...so I guess the good news is I got the fire out much sooner than you...two quick puffs from the extinguisher and the fire was out...that and slowly rolling it back down the hill in neutral to keep the burning oil from puddling under the truck.

Crossing my fingers this isn't going to be terribly expensive.

Two questions for Toy3zve - did you replace the seal both times and, if you don't mind me asking...how expensive were the repairs?

-Mac

 

By 'seal', do you mean the plug covering the "overflow" hole in the bottom of the bell housing (as shown in the middle of the second picture)? No, I discovered the plug on the ground after the first fire (really no damage at all to the truck due to it being on sand) and a mechanic friend of mine said to leave the plug off. The second fire caused more damage because (a) it happened over dry grass, and (b) it was my wife driving the truck and trailer at the time so a bit of a panic ensued, resulting in a delayed fire suppression response. No seals were replaced because the culprit was the overflow plug popping off due to the tranny overheating, pouring hot fluid onto the y-pipe.

Total cost of fire #2 to repaint, repair and replace was about $3200 if I recall, all taken care of by insurance (AAA). The transmission was fine (and in fact the truck was driveable). About a year later I had the trans rebuilt and at the time I had the shop install a 24K trans cooler inline with the stock cooler and haven't had an overheating tranny problem since.

 

Uh, no. That plug was not the culprit, it was simply acting like the drain plug in your sink. It just let out the fluid out of the bell housing that wasn't supposed to be in there in the first place.

The culprit seal is the one around the input shaft (that the torque converter rides on). Here's an image grabbed from a YT screenshot of an E4OD, essentially identical to the 4R100. The seal is that silver & orange thing.

 

Dealer just got back to me...it was the rear main.


Fire took out the engine and transmission harnesses and the starter. The tech is looking at the y pipe, torque convertor and transmission...he said the transmission is certainly slipping.


We're submitting everything to the insurance company and we'll see...truck's blue book is $6200...my guess is we're headed towards totaling out the vehicle.


-Mac

 

that's very odd - unless you had the truck on a huge incline, the rear main usually doesn't leak enough oil all at once to cause a fire.

If they're saying the tranny is slipping, I'd say it was the tranny.

Unless, of course, the rear main was leaking for a long time, the y-pipe was soaked, and THEN all that oil caught fire.

 

I, too am betting on the front transmission seal. Very common to have one overheat and puke after a hard pull. I would be surprised if the insurance co buys into this.

 

According to the dealer the transmission oil is still in the transmission and the engine oil is gone and burned. I'll get pictures off the State Farm site and post them here in a couple of hours.


-Mac

 

Just a dumb question, how can they tell if the transmission is slipping if the wiring harness and starter has been destroyed?????

I would think it be rather hard to drive it in that condition?????

Edit, you posted while I was typing.
I Didn't know you could check the transmission oil level with the engine not running.
Hope they treat you well.

 

A whole bunch of very valid questions...