Good Evening Everybody,

It has been some time since I posted here, my Ex has been running great and hasn't needed any major work until tonight. About 8:45 this evening my neighbor rang our doorbell to let us know our Ex was on fire. After a few tense moments trying to get the fire out with a water hose I was able to get the hood open and completely extinguish the fire. The damage isn't as bad as I first imagined but it will still take some $$$ to correct everything. We believe the fire started in the wiring harness which runs along the firewall on top of the engine and connected to the cowling. It was contained to the right side of the truck but the coolant reservoir and airfilter box will have to be replaced. Along with these I know the following items will be getting replaced too:

Battery
Oil fill tube
A/C line
upper wiring harness
whatever the reservoir is behind the right side battery

If anybody knows where I can purchase the upper main wiring harness that would be helpful. I will try to keep this thread updated with my progress, maybe someone here has had this problem too and can help me through it.

Thank you,
Jeff

Photo what it looks like tonight, I will post additional pictures once the sun comes out and I can see the damage in more detail. I'll see about a place to put pictures so I can upload them

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.ph...00009206259796

 

WOW! that does not look good. If you make an insurance claim don't be surprised if they total it.

 

Yes thats a write off right there, nobody is wanting to fix that.

 

https://www.car-part.com/
For the part, look for "Wiring Harness (engine)"

 

It does not appear to be that grim. The truck only has liability insurance so a total write off is not an option for me. The truck only has 192K miles, still low mileage for a vehicle which is 16 years old.

This morning I removed the coolant tank, air box and right side battery. After this I did a thorough wash of the entire engine and engine compartment. This took off all the soot and residue from putting out the fire and gave me a much better picture of the damage. It looks like the main damage is the wiring harness which runs along the top of the engine compartment. It is only melted on the passenger side. I will also be replacing several other pieces along the way. The AC connections on the right side fender took most of the damage. I will also have to replace the steel braided lines for my external oil cooler, they aren't melted but took a lot of heat. I am worried the inside lining is damaged. I will also have to replace the upper two turbo boots, some water hoses, and a few other connections. I am hoping the wiring harness will have all of these with it. I will also have to replace my battery cable, sucks because I did that about 2 years ago and it is a pain to get to.

Below are some pictures from after the cleaning. Been looking for a way to embed the picture so it shows in the post but haven't been able to find a free service which will allow it.


I have been lucky with the hood, no wraps, all body gaps are right where they should be.


A little heat damage to the battery handle and MAP connector but everything else here is great.


Engine oil dipstick and overflow line will be replaced.


The braided lines will have to be replaced. The lining is melted out of about half the line but it did not run back into the filter housing. It appears all the melted material ran into the oil cooler so that is going to be replaced now too.


Air inlet will be replaced and the top of the fuel filter top, seems to be a little deformed.


Hot side boot will be replaced.


Vacuum reservoir, coolant lines from the EGR delete and most of the AC items will have to be replaced.





Just below the hot side tube there appears to be no damage. The electrical tape isn't even melted.


EGR valve isn't an issue since there is no EGR cooler.


Heater control valve, vacuum valve and heater hose connections further back are a little damaged.









The upper radiator shroud is a little deformed and might be replaced. Will have to see how much everything else ends up being.

 

That is grim. What the hell caused that? There are so many different things that look burned or melted.

You will have to make sure all those bare harness wires didn't short and damage your PCM, ECM, BCM etc...if you are going to repair all that.

Maybe the mobile version of this site is different, but the picture uploader is to the right of the paperclip up there.

Good Luck!

 

I am all for you fixing it, but from an engineering standpoint, think about this detail before you get too carried away with swapping cables out and hooking them back up.

Wires do not normally melt, then short, and catch fire, for no reason, out of the blue.

They do this, when a component they are connected to has malfunctioned, shorted, or is exerting an excessively high load that is to much for the wires in question.

So just replacing that harness, may yield you a brand new fire, if the component that led to the potential current overload is still in place doing what it did before.

See if you can identify EXACTLY which wire(s) caused the meltdown, or are the most badly deformed, and follow them to their destination in both directions, and you likely find a malfunctioning electrical item of some form. I seem to recall someone having had a more minor meltdown when some kind of aftermarket glow plug set went awry, but im not a diesel person and have only ever torn down or built up gas engines, my dad is a 40 year diesel engineer specializing in detriot and caterpillar diesels but we have never worked on a diesel together, only gassers strange as that sounds now.

BETTER YET! Either buy a cheap FLIR that hooks up to your mobile phone(they are on amazon), or else borrow one from someone who has one, and after turning everything back up, and hooking up the battery, use the FLIR to go hot spot hunting as a quick method to find the source of any remaining current overloads, the video from the FLIR will literally show you color outlines of everything you point it at with the color representing the temperature, so if you pull back some of the harness insulation coating, the outer plastic wrap, and look through the FLIR, and any wires that are starting to get hot will be extremely visible, the moment you see such, yank the battery cable to stop the heating and track them down and fix whatever is causing it.

Looky Here:


As for hunting tips, I don't think it would be any of your sensor leads, O2, TPS, MAP, MAF, Temp, Fuel Pressure Sensor, Oil Pressure Sensor, etc. These all carry low voltage, and while anything is technically possible, i would check all the items that run full 12V first.

 

Excellent advice.

Can't rep out of ammo.

 

thank you for the information. I think I found a likely cause of the overload. If you look closely at the positive battery connection you can see some bare wire on the battery lead. It was rubbing on my external oil cooler and it might be some of the cause. All the wires in the main part of the harness which was burned are so bad they can’t be identified. My plan has been to replace most of the sensors under the hood connected to that harness and follow them back the i logger way to make sure nothing is showing. I want to use a new harness as I do not want to inherit someone else’s modifications/work. I’m also planning to replace all of the battery cables and make sure they are not rubbing on anything. I might even custom make them so I have plenty of length to work with.

thanks again for all of the information. I’ll see if I can find a FLIR for my phone.

jeff

 

Maybe you can find the same or similar vehicle at wrecking yard to source the harness and all the burned and melted stuff.

 

After pressure washing the entire engine compartment I let it set all day to dry and started removing some of the old parts this evening. Tomorrow I will be working on removing the AC components and hopefully the wiring harness.


Battery tray, vacuum reservoir, hot and cold tubes, braided lines and coolant filter were removed. I was able to save the hot and cold tubes, a couple of the turbo boots, and battery tray can be reused. I used ziplock bags to cover the oil filter lines and turbo hot outlet.





This could have been part of the problem. I noticed this when I started to take parts off. It was rubbing on the oil cooler, pictured below.






At least now I can also replace the windshield washer motor, I noticed it had stopped working about 5 months ago. The AC lines to and from the compressor were still good, no damage what so ever could be seen. The remote oil cooler will be replaced, some of the lining from the stainless braided line melted back into it. It can been seen if you look down the openings. You can see in this picture a definite line where where the heat damage stopped. The oil filler tube is melted but the water lines just beside it are still in tact.

 

I hate to say it but, the hood should be replaced also. Even with impeccable prep work paint will usually fail prematurely on burned body panels. It is probably not with the gamble of having the paint fail within the first year or two.
Good luck on the repairs!

 

I suggest replacing any coolant lines that were near the heat, even if they look fine, preventative, and cheap to do, expensive to fix later if they indeed turn out to have issues.

Also, put a plastic bag over each of those AC lines and tape them on, if a bug or anything else falls or crawls into them, you will run into gremlins in the AC system when you go to charge it back up.

 

All of the AC lines are going to be replaced, with the exception of the two going/coming from the compressor, all have sustained some type of damage. But I will cover those two lines, thanks for pointing it out.

for right now I’m just going to repaint the hood, I’ll replace it when I get the extra $$$ it will take to get a new one.

thanks for mentioning the coolant lines, they will all be replaced also.

 

Check the junkyards for one of the same color. You might find it's just as cheap to swap it as it is to paint it properly.