Tough ol' engine!

[Matteh]

On saturday morning i left uni for home. I left at about 8am with a car *fully* packed!

I did a detour via tewksbury (left from exeter), where i met a few online friends for a rolling road day. we then headed (the wrong way) up the m5 to go to a pub.

So there i was, doing 'some' mph when i see smoke from under my bonnet. i quickly pull over - no thanks to the car infront who wanted to wait for the biggest possible gap in the traffic to appear before crossing the road . I get out and open the bonnet to be greeted by a nice set of flames. my engine was on fire! my heart sank!

'luckily' it was only because the manifold had gotten so hot (literally red hot) that it had ignited a bit of oil that had been on my engine since i first got it. nice 15~20cm flames!

then realised we had gone the wrong way on the motorway and i was, infact, in birmingham. So it meant i had to drive across the M6 and down the M1, back to hertfordshire! I also got stuck on the m1 for about an hour in stationary traffic, whilst hoping my engine didnt blow up or something!

So, an eventful day. woke up at 6, left at 8, covered 350miles, 1 engine fire and arrived home at 6pm, surviving only on a packet of liquorice allsorts!

Oh, all that only took me 1 tank of fuel, meaning i got 37/38mpg!

 

[Chris1.4RT]

lol, I'd be making sure your fan is kicking in, sounds like the engine is getting a little hot.

My old RT used to get very hot. I'd be stuck in traffic and the needle would rise way too much. Turn on the internal heaters and put em on full whack, open windows if it's too hot for you. The internal heater will draw some of the engine heat away keeping the engine cooler, longer.

 

[Ingram]

I wired my fan up to a switch so i could turn it on in traffic,

 

[Matteh]

my fan does come in but my heater matrix is blocked, so can't do that

Temp seemed fine, just the exhaust got ruddy hot!

 

[Mells]

that could have been well expensive.

how did u get all the way to b'ham in the m5, thats 1 1/4hr from bristol..

take it your not studying geography at uni !?!

 

[Batman]

i had smoke coming from my bonnet in my clio stuck in traffic on the motorway in the rain turned out it was smoke off the bonnet from the heat of the engine (and no i dont have the heat shield on the underside of the bonnet as it had a 1.2 in originally)

 

[Fletcher]

My girlfriends old Fiat Uno 45 caught alight just as we were parking in West Quay Southampton, one minute a little bit of smoke, the next huge flames needless to say the car was a right off.

 

[Matteh]

that could have been well expensive.

how did u get all the way to b'ham in the m5, thats 1 1/4hr from bristol..

take it your not studying geography at uni !?!

well, we were in teweksbury, which is a bit north of bristol anyway and then meant to head down to 11a... we all went hooning it off in convoy on the motorway.. i just followed blindly