Lazyeye Posted February 24, 2010 Share Posted February 24, 2010 Car: 79-280zx Miles: 80K, I've owned it for about 100miles Last night I was taking my 1979 280zx for a shakedown run after finishing up with the clutch. After about 30 miles I had a sudden loss of power, like the engine just died for no apparent reason. I popped the hood and saw that the distributor was ON FIRE. We batted the fire out and then my buddy Chris towed my car back to his garage (good thing he tailed me in his 300zx). It was late and I was kinda angry, so I didn't investigate past taking a few pics with my Blackberry. I've never heard of this happening, any ideas on why it would catch on fire? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eec564 Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 Perhaps something flammable got on the cap, and arcing caught it on fire. I'd check VERY carefully for gasoline leaks, especially around the cold-start injector, as those hoses/connections frequently get overlooked. What does it look like under the distributor cap? Was the fire just on the outside surface? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasper Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 I remember early v12 jaguar engines had a vacuum hose to the distributor cap. This was to evacuate fuel vapors from the cap, preventing an explosion/ fire/ condensation. I'm betting your "episode" was a fuel leak, ignited by a spark plug wire,at the cap.......YOU ARE VERY LUCKY. I always have a fire extinguisher in the Datsun. I should put one in the DD Benz. See Grumpyvettes thread for additional reinforcement of this very usefull suggestion.... BTW........I have four in my home.........( my ex wife used the smoke alarm as a cooking aide) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazyeye Posted February 25, 2010 Author Share Posted February 25, 2010 I remember early v12 jaguar engines had a vacuum hose to the distributor cap. This was to evacuate fuel vapors from the cap, preventing an explosion/ fire/ condensation. I'm betting your "episode" was a fuel leak, ignited by a spark plug wire,at the cap.......YOU ARE VERY LUCKY. I always have a fire extinguisher in the Datsun. I should put one in the DD Benz. See Grumpyvettes thread for additional reinforcement of this very usefull suggestion.... BTW........I have four in my home.........( my ex wife used the smoke alarm as a cooking aide) The Distributor itself was OK. The cap/rotor/wires were all toasted. I checked around for leaks and didn't find any. I replaced the melted/burned parts and it works. I think I'm going to chalk this up to some kind of short or something due to the squirrels the previous owner kept under the hood. I'll keep a close eye on it as I work on other parts of the car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eec564 Posted February 25, 2010 Share Posted February 25, 2010 Check your evap system for cracked hoses, that could accumulate fuel vaper under the hood, and if the insulation on the wires was degraded, arcing could most certainly ignite it. Better yet, just replace ALL of the rubber under the hood, or better yet, on the entire car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zmanco Posted February 26, 2010 Share Posted February 26, 2010 Look at the cap and see if it looks like the fire was on the outside or inside. If it's outside, then I wouldn't drive the car until I found the source. Fuel lines are the first place I'd look. Is that a fuel hose in the picture just above it? The other day I had some new hose I installed only a week before spring a leak about 1" away from the end of the FPR and drip on the intake manifold. Luckily I smelled it inside the cabin when I was near a parts store. I changed the hose in the parking lot, otherwise I'd have needed a tow home. If it had dripped down onto the exhaust manifold it might have been a lot messier. If it's inside, then I'm not sure off hand, but I still wouldn't drive it until I knew what caused it. I think you got lucky this time - I wouldn't wait for it to happen again. The cap/rotor/plug wires didn't spontaneously burst into flames by themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazyeye Posted February 26, 2010 Author Share Posted February 26, 2010 Rgr that. Thanks for the help. I'll continue investigating for leaks and probably replace a lot of these 30 year old hoses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyuri Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 I had the exact same thing happen to my car a few years back. The only thing I'd changed recently was to install a new Duralast cap and rotor and a fuel filter from Autozone. After the fire all I did was dig out some old plug wires and get a new cap/rotor from NAPA that I'm still running. I'm still not sure about the relationship, if any, but I haven't bought anything from Autozone since, and I haven't had any problems with new parts since. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rip Oliver Posted April 3, 2019 Share Posted April 3, 2019 My cap on my 1990 Toyota 4 Runner caught on fire just like the picture a month ago. I ended up replacing the whole distributor and spark plug wires. I also had a fuel leak from the fuel dampener valve under the intake maniford but the mechanics said it was probably unrelated as it was not pooling that way. In any event it made enough vapors to be able to smell the fuel inside the cab and around the front end. Recently, I spoke with a different mechanic and he thinks maybe the seal in the distributro itself may of leaked vapor and it caught on fire inside the cap which is what looked like happened. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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