Feb 2004 Worste Month Of My Life - Car On Fire

[SlowWhite]

Yep the GSX caught fire today on the way home for lunch.

Here's the email I sent my parents:
Well Febuary 2004 has officially gone done as the worste month of my life. Today on the way home for lunch my car caught fire. (don't worry not a big one I didn't get hurt, and it might be fixable)


Story behind the fire:

Friday night I started hearing a humming sound but couldn't quite put my finger on it. So saturday I jacked the car up and spent a while trying to figure out what it was. I found my exhaust was rubbing against the driveshaft but that still wasn't the problem.

I thought might be a bad wheel bearing (but I replaced those last winter), I then thought maybe I need new brake pads, rear's are ok but will need a change here in the next couple months so that wasn't it, maybe my tire is out of balance. So I put on my spare tires, nope that wasn't it., Swapped my other tires back on. And after an hour couldn't find anything out of place. So I called it quits.

Sunday=tuesday drove around a little more running arrands, to and from work, still had the humming.

So today on the way home. the problem presented itself to me. My rear Differencial that distributes the power to the rear tires. has become out of alignment or something. And on the way home the caseing actually exploded (I have a nice hole now in the rear diff) I noticed White smoke coming from the rear of the car so I pulled over by the time I slowed down 20mph the inside of the car was filling with smoke. So I pulled off the off ramp and I couldn't see anymore so I locked up the brakes and pulled over (didn't occur to me to roll down the windows I was to paniced and was watching the smoke in my side mirror as well as just thinking about getting to the off ramp) I got out of the car thinking the smoke was probably oil or something in the front. But with the aid of the wind I noticed it was coming from the rear so I went to the back and looked under the car to find my entire rear difference in flames.. And the metal glowing Red hot. with fluid coming out the diff.

I started Looking around for someone to help. No one so I looked under there again and it looked even worste looked around again and no one after pausing for a second and realizing that this is right under my fuel tank and thinking to my self do I run or what? I started throughing snow at the diff about a minute or so of tossing snow at the diff. The fire finally went out. But was still smoking pretty good. In hind sight I probably should have just let the car to burn and hope the insurance company would cover the damages or perferably just total the car. And hope that the fire woudl just be contained to the rear of the car that way I could save the engine parts. and what not.

Long story short I don't know if I can fix this or not... It looks like the damage is strickly limited to the diff but who knows. I don't even want to think about it right now. I have to get Jenny's car up and running somehow tonight. As we both need a car for work tomarrow.


What a month:

3 Car Accidents
3rd year in a row I was denied a pay raise (I guess there's a salary cap on my position)
1 Blown Knee (still recovering)
1 Fire

[npaulseth]

I couldn't be more sorry for your luck. Tell Jenny Noah says hi.

[SlowWhite]

Will do. It's her birthday this weekend So I'll tell her you say that also.

-brian

[AJ]

Damn Brian that sucks! I hope everything works out for ya.

[SlowWhite]

Personally I think I'm going to leave it up to the insurance company. I'm hoping they'll pay for it or total the car. If they due I'm getting out of dsm's all together. (Jenny wants to sell her car also) and I'll just sport a metro or something till I get enough saved for a supra.

I don't have the funds to fix it and Jenny's car's also still broke so I'm going to have to take the next couple days off of work to fix her car. Since she now works in Shakopee I no longer have the time to driver her to work during my lunch breaks.

-brian

is this the same gsx you just posted up for sale?

[TalonFiero]

Shit Brian, that sux for you and Jenny.

Maybe that flood shortened the life of that car. Did you ever have the diff apart in the rear?

Thankfully you are OK and didn't get hurt.

Whats wrong with Jenny's 1g?

Hang in there, stuff has a way of working out.

Jim

[ACRucrazy]

That sux to hear man!
If its not totalled, id say PART IT! PART IT OUT, you will get WAY more than what you could trying to sell it together.
If you have as much into that as I did into my ACR,
I sold over 9 grand just in parts that in about 2 months for my ACR, and I still have the car and abunch of stuff.

Sorry to hear man, good luck!

[Kracka]

Sorry to hear that Brian. That car has been problems since day #1. Hopefully the insurance company just totals it...you could buy it back pretty cheap and just sell the parts off it.

[SlowWhite]

when I parted out my GS-T I only got about 3500 for it. (would have got about 5K if it was running)


And yes this is the same car I just had put up for sale. Does anyone know how much a new rear diff would cost? And or where I can get one? and how hard are they to swap?


I guess I learned my lesson not to drive around with a welded VC in the car. (I was hoping to dyno on race gas this week or next)

-Brian
ps: I took pictures once I got it back the garage. But my work computer won't let me install the software I need to load them. Hopefully I can save them off my laptop and then tranfer. So hopefully I'll have picts shortly. (not really much to see except a whole in the casing and then a crap load of oil sprayed everywhere.

[Enes]

white hats you.. i think you should like just throw that car into a lake or something...

i know you said no, but keep me in mind for the dsmlink .. i am not sure if awd ecu's are different from fwd in any way?

-E

the FWD's have speed limiters on the ECU's but if your going to run a dsmlink it will solve that for ya



If it was priced cheap enough i wouldn't mind buying it just to part out. I need a bunch of misc. engine parts. Not to mention i wouldn't mind having the head for the GST back

atleast the fuel tank didn't go

that really sucks. and I thought I had a bad month in January with an accident and a ticket....

[Goat Blower]

Geez, I thought weekly visits to the hospital for me and the wife was bad.

On a positive note, swapping the rear diff is not that difficult or expensive, I wouldn't total the car based on that. If your axle splines aren't jacked up, you can just swap the pumpkin itself. My old neighbor did his on a 95 GSX automatic and he got the pumpkin for a couple hundred and had it swapped out over a weekend. Should be easier than a clutch swap.

And get rid of that welded VC for the street, they are bad news for drivetrain components. I would say with 99% confidence that was the cause of your problem.

[Jana]

Man, I'm sorry to hear this Brian! At least you weren't hurt!!

[BuildADSM]

that sucks man. I am sorry you have had such bad experences with dsm's.

[Jakey]

Damn Brian, I hope things get themselves worked out!

[Super Bleeder!!]

Originally posted by Goat Blower@Feb 25 2004, 05:07 PM


And get rid of that welded VC for the street, they are bad news for drivetrain components. I would say with 99% confidence that was the cause of your problem.

even though he wont say it, i'm sure Cher agrees with you

[JET]

Sorry Brian. I am with Steve, you should be able to swap it out for a couple hundred and it is pretty easy to do. Should take about 4 hours if it comes out like a 1g one. Possibly even less if the axles will pull out of the pumpkin. Good luck!

[A//// Guy]

Yea that is a pretty bad month. I wouldnt total it unless your really ready to get rid of it and claim your losses. The Rear diff is easy as other said it just drops down. Much cheaper than selling it or claiming and gettting some money back. Wouldnt your insurance pay for the fixing and the parts needed to get it back up?