Almost burned it to the ground yesterday.

[needabronco]

Learned my lesson.

I've been smelling gas after I shut it down in the garage the last couple of days, but never could find a leak.

Well yesterday I pulled out of the driveway and about a 100 yards down the road, the gas smell was really bad so I pulled over popped the hood and gas was every where, hood, on the battery dripping all over the intake manifold, starter. Fuel was actually boiling on the exhaust.

Pulled in the driveway, retrieved the extinguisher out of the garage, and opened the hood again only to discover that my metal fuel filter had a pinhole leak at the crimp in the housing, that now looked like a guiser. luckily the fuel did not ignite somehow, and it all cleaned up fairly easily, but imagine the pucker factor...

After I got everything cleaned up and a new filter installed I put the extinguisher in the back of the bronco. Lesson learned. Now to find a permanant mount for that.

Not quite a Tito moment, but it sure could have been...

 

[sprdv1]

OUCH... Glad that didn't burn up on ya....

 

[cobralee]

Good to hear that you found the source of the problem before it was too late.

 

[trlblazr]

Thanks for the heads up. We need to keep a close eye on these old girls.

 

[joe]

a similar situation happen to ne a few years back, however i was'nt as lucky.

the wifes first bronco, a 73, was parked in the back of the barn and one cold winter morning i had to move it out of the way to get the snow plow on the truck. jumped it and had to pump the hell out of it to get it started thinking man why aint this thing firing, well it finnaly started and thats when i noticed a strong odor of gas, i was just about to shut it off and check the thing out when POOF!. huge fire under the hood. popped the hood, threw my jacket and shirt off to smother the flames, finally got it out before it burned down the old dry barn.

blistered the inside walls of the swampers. melted everything meltable under the hood, melted the radiator bubbled the paint on the hood.

the cause of the fire was a plastic in line filter cracked because of a dry rotted 2" piece of rubber fuel line. sprayed gas all over everything until it found an ignition source.

so a few years later she got the new blue 72.

 

[needabronco]

Joe, thats why I purposely buy metal fuel filters, it was couple of years old, but only had about 500 miles on it. The hoses still look like new.

It also explains why I've had to let it crank for about 5-6 seconds to start. It starts much easier now...

Just glad I figured it out before I had my 3 kids in back and was cruisin down the highway...

 

[mr incredible]

that takes pucker to a new level buddy , . i had an old mercury cougar that i had do the same thing , lost the whole car on the free way ,, saw nuthin but orange fire , blew the hood right off ! hit the key , stomped on the e brake , and bailed at about 25 mph .. good thing i am a fet feller , lots of good crash padding !!

 

[Dave]

I had fuel pump diafram fail on my 83 FSB. (6 years old 44K miles) It totally drenched the inside of the engine compartment on a hot engine by spraying fuel out of a hole on the top of the pump. I pulled off the side of the road when I got a sudden overwhelming fuel smell in the cab. Never lit off.

You see all kinds of marginal fixes and mods that guys do like plastic see through filters, rubber or plastic hose next to hot parts etc. Or even design flaws like carbs the spew fuel all over the engine if the float sticks. At least the EFI systems seemed to be designed to much higher standards and performance.

 

[Madgyver]

Reminded me of the "Fire Bronco".... ;D


We all know how that turned out, Huh?