Muffler explosion
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Senior User
Joined: May 2012
Posts: 278
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From: Ball Ground Georgia
Muffler explosion
Has anyone had a muffler explode? I was driving on the freeway back to Atlanta from Chattanooga when I lost power and had some backfires through the carb. About 10 seconds later BLAM!!!!! 
I pulled over and looked underneath the bed and the muffler looks like a taco. I post photos tomorrow. Needless to say it scared the S#¥% out of my wife. I've never had that happen before...
Anyone with a simular story?
I pulled over and looked underneath the bed and the muffler looks like a taco. I post photos tomorrow. Needless to say it scared the S#¥% out of my wife. I've never had that happen before...
Anyone with a simular story?
Elder User
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 547
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i wasnt in the truck when it happened, but my buddy's 79 jeep J20 with a 360 blew both mufflers 10 minutes apart when he was driving it to school to work on it. said it sounded like somebody was shooting a 12 gauge from the bed when they went
Cargo Master
Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 2,246
Likes: 303
From: Kenner,La.
muffler
68 ,Ranger, Usually this is caused by a loss of the ignition system, points not opening enough or low voltage to the coil, when the ignition stopped the engine kept feeding fuel through the exaust , when the ignition came on it lit up the mixture. My dad had a wrecker for our mechanic shop that I could make it backfire by turning the key off and on, it would scare the CHEVY out of people! We used to take it out at night just for fun.
Kenny
Kenny
Hotshot
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 18,488
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From: The Big, Oregon
My 84 F250 did this when a friend was working on it. It mysteriously lost spark, but had power everywhere it was supposed to be, even the timing was good. When he was turning the distributor to double check, the actual problem showed itself when the distributor grounded and it fired off the raw gas in one of the mufflers. An extra ground wire later it ran without a hitch-
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Fleet Mechanic
Joined: May 2012
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From: peru kansas
another cause
if you truck was running rich for a long time it will build up carbon on the insides of the entire exhaust system and when it gets hot it can auto detonate if you let off the gas i had an old truck do that for about 6 months and it was funnier than hell when you took a new rider around with you lol it stopped after i put new exhaust on
Fleet Owner
Joined: Jun 1999
Posts: 24,552
Likes: 74
From: Creedmoor, North Carolina
Basically a gas explosion in the muffler. You lost power from ignition failure "points closed up or the like" then there was fire in the hole.
Time for a new muffler and a tune up. Might want to think about a Petronix or other electronic upgrade.
John
Time for a new muffler and a tune up. Might want to think about a Petronix or other electronic upgrade.
John
Laughing Gas
Joined: Mar 2010
Posts: 1,028
Likes: 5
From: San Francisco East Bay
I had a failure of the points - the block that rides the D-shaft actually broke off at the rivet. This means the points had nothing riding the D-shaft to force them to open.
Got it into a parking lot, diagnosed the points failure after trying, trying, trying to restart, went across the street to the auto parts store, got points, a screwdriver and a feeler gauge, installed the new points, set them, then went to restart the truck *KA-BLAM* - sent the pigeons flying with a partially-contained fuel-air bomb.
Didn't blow the muffler, but it did blow out the doughnuts at the exhaust manifolds.
Got it into a parking lot, diagnosed the points failure after trying, trying, trying to restart, went across the street to the auto parts store, got points, a screwdriver and a feeler gauge, installed the new points, set them, then went to restart the truck *KA-BLAM* - sent the pigeons flying with a partially-contained fuel-air bomb.
Didn't blow the muffler, but it did blow out the doughnuts at the exhaust manifolds.
Lead Driver
Joined: Aug 2003
Posts: 7,592
Likes: 10
From: **** hole San Jose ca.
Hmm guess I throw my 2cents in here. Hard starting for the first start of the day.
If it didn't fire up and run that first try it would crank and almost start like a bad resistor block. One quiet morning ol blue would not fire up so I keep cranking it pump a few more times stop then try again, Right then it sounded like an M-80 going off as. I was running the 45-50,000 volt Accel big yellow coil. The birds came out no where dogs started baking, some people peek out their windows. I got out looked at the underside of my truck and my 23" mufflers were opened up from end to end with about 8-9" wide open in the middle . OKAY come to find out later the the ignition switch plug was bad. This was a common problem with this ignition switches that had the round contacts. There was a replacement pigtail to correct the problem. Trouble was, I never knew about this problem until getting a new ign switch, in the box it showed a new pigtail for my type of switch so ordered one. All my starting issues went away after replacing the pigtail. I've now since replaced the whole switch & it's plug too the flat spade type.
That was before knowing of this site.
orich
If it didn't fire up and run that first try it would crank and almost start like a bad resistor block. One quiet morning ol blue would not fire up so I keep cranking it pump a few more times stop then try again, Right then it sounded like an M-80 going off as. I was running the 45-50,000 volt Accel big yellow coil. The birds came out no where dogs started baking, some people peek out their windows. I got out looked at the underside of my truck and my 23" mufflers were opened up from end to end with about 8-9" wide open in the middle . OKAY come to find out later the the ignition switch plug was bad. This was a common problem with this ignition switches that had the round contacts. There was a replacement pigtail to correct the problem. Trouble was, I never knew about this problem until getting a new ign switch, in the box it showed a new pigtail for my type of switch so ordered one. All my starting issues went away after replacing the pigtail. I've now since replaced the whole switch & it's plug too the flat spade type.
That was before knowing of this site.
orich
Freshman User
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 33
Likes: 0
From: East Tennessee
Same Experience with Petronix
Same happened to me about a month ago and it has the Petronix ignition. Im assuming it was a ground problem. Not sure yet, just rebuilt the carb and haven't had time to tinker.