The Dark Wob

paulplom wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 8:04 am I'm amazed and pleased you got your money back. Was it a garage you bought it from?

No-that what made it even more amazing. Private sale so I was expecting him to say tough luck. There are still decent people about. I was very lucky. My fault for being a tightwad. I thought it would last a few years-got 9 years out of the focus, 21 years out of my Sierra and in for an mot Monday and 15 years and going in my Range Rover.

BMW 6 days.

On the lookout now for a Focus estate for a lot more Wonga.

Definitely stressful having smoke billowing out of a car all of a sudden. I had it happen on my Mk1 Golf Campaign. Some of the dash lights didn't work so I replaced all the little blown bulbs I could find. It repaid me by setting fire to the cables somewhere behind the radio. Thankfully I hadn't fitted the radio properly into it's cage, saw the glowing cables and ripped them out. I burnt my hand but my beloved GTi was relatively unscathed.

I've stopped a pool car from going up at the Police's Tally Ho training centre too. Copious amounts of smoke coming from under the bonnet on a Peugeot 307 I think it was. They finally found the keys, very gingerly lifted the bonnet but couldn't figure out where to stick the fire extinguisher in. This went on for minutes, higher ranking officers with pips on their shoulders turning up meant the ones already there deferred to them so nothing was done. In the end I grabbed a pair of pliers, made my way down the stairs and disconnected the battery. It turned out I didn't even need the pliers, it had a quick release, muppets

I was changing the steering column on a Defender once and didn’t disconnect the battery. One of the heater cables dropped onto the back of the ignition switch across the terminals without me realising. Next thing I could smell burning and smoke was billowing from the melting plastic shroud. I disconnected the battery, left it to cool down and learned a lesson about not being lazy.

I think I've said before that I was driving my Disco when the stop solenoid, temp sensor or alternator warning wire shorted out on the side of the head & set light to itself. That set light to the other two as they ran together & created a nice waft of smoke out of the bonnet. Only made more fun by the bonnet sticking & refusing to open as it often did for five mins.

Bit of spare wire out the boot, poked in the battery terminal & wrapped around the stop solenoid got it running again to drive it home.

Smoke billowed under the dash in my E21 316 returning from holiday in France many years ago.

I'd like to think it had nothing to do with me having changed the instrument binnacle the previous weekend but I never got to the bottom of it as I scrambled to disconnect the battery before a painstaking investigation comprised of turning the ignition back on whilst stood outside of the car failed to uncover any further conflagration.

I concluded that whatever had emitted the smoke obviously had no more of the substance left to give and pressed on to Boulogne regardless.

I've had minor burning issues in other cars but always an external source of flammability such as dangling rubber seals or forgotten pork pie wrappers poked in exhaust manifolds. A Mk1 Mini went up quite spectacularly albeit very briefly when a vapour-filled but fuel-less gallon can shorted across the battery terminals in the boot. That made an impressive bang but everything was so damp from the leaking boot there was no lasting fireball.

I had an experience with a diesel mk3 escort while on a dual carriage way. I had earlier that morning fitted a new radio with the live fed unfused directly from the battery. I thought the fuse in the stereo would be enough.
Anyway I was doing about *70 when smoke started coming out from behind the dashboard and filling the cabin. Given that me being legal on the road in those days I was in a massive panic pulling over. I managed to anyway, popped the bonnet and ripped the wire from the battery saving the car and my skin. I managed to get away and everything was cool.
Looking back that mk3 would would have done me a favour if the bastard was burnt out. Shit car.

paulplom wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 3:33 pm I had an experience with a diesel mk3 escort while on a dual carriage way. I had earlier that morning fitted a new radio with the live fed unfused directly from the battery. I thought the fuse in the stereo would be enough.
Anyway I was doing about *70 when smoke started coming out from behind the dashboard and filling the cabin. Given that me being legal on the road in those days I was in a massive panic pulling over. I managed to anyway, popped the bonnet and ripped the wire from the battery saving the car and my skin. I managed to get away and everything was cool.
Looking back that mk3 would would have done me a favour if the bastard was burnt out. Shit car.

Same with my Mk3 petrol estate. I wired in a stereo using wires I found in the garage. Up like a fireball, but somehow managed to rip out the wires and it went out. I too should have left it to burn. Have you ever driven an Escort that was on its 4th time round on the odometer?

No, it was a lot less than that and it was woeful. Yours must have been grim!

I quite liked my MK3 1.6GL but then again it had less than 10k on the clock. It was a lot better than the Orion 1.6i Ghia I had a year or so after, not least because it actually had working suspension rather than one using marshmallows.

But still inferior to K659MMD Cavalier that you got after pissing off the finance director?