Fire under the hood
 

Okay, my son was driving my 1971 350sl on Friday night. He was in the drive thru line at a burger place and smoke started coming out of the hood. He pulled forward and the engine was on fire. He opened up the hood and got a fire extinguisher and put it out.

The damage: radiator hose melted, distributor cap and all lines going to it gone, any rubber hose on top of the engine melted,,,and many of the wire connected to any sensor is toast. vacuum hoses are melted. Fan shroud is slightly damaged. The main bundle of wires coming from the fire wall into the engine compartment is toast.

Questions and opinions: Should I get this fixed or total the car out. the engine will turn but of course it will not do anything else. Mostly just the electrical stuff and hoses.

I can post pictures of the sad event too.

Thanks for the forth coming comments.

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The dry-chem extinguisher compound is very caustic, best to get it off of any metals ASAP if you intend to repair.

X2 pressure washer anything - get that stuff off!

And say well done to your son for saving most of your car.

Have you had a repair quote yet?

The wiring is the expensive part. You can fix with butt connectors and some wire if you want to do it cheap (ie. cheaper than buying entirely new wiring harnesses)

Look at how many wires are actually burnt. Melted insulation can be fixed with liquid electrical tape if it is a small area and only the insulation is a problem. For major issues, cut out the wire and splice in new.

Once you assess how many wires need to be fixed, take a guess as to how many hours of work it will be to replace. Then make a decision.

Connectors (if melted) can come off a donor car, or you can buy new if you don't need too many.

Rubber hoses and spark plug wires aren't expensive and would have needed to be replaced in a few years anyway, given the age of the car.

So buy a couple of spools of wire, some liquid electrical tape, spark plug wire set, and a couple of different sizes of rubber hose and you should be good.

The rest of the job is all labor.

If you get the car pressure washed quickly, you might get away with replacing the hood.. and possibly painting the front fenders if the paint was damaged. I wouldn't think there is too much work other than that.

I'd take a guess and say if you had all the tools/supplies and spent a FULL weekend (ie. 7am to midnight each day), you could probably be driving the car to a paint shop on Monday morning.

part it out unless you are very emotionally attached to this car and/or you love doing lots and lots of your own work.

You will need to replace a huge amount of parts. Also, the heat from the fire will have damaged lots of metal beyond wiring, some of which just needs paint, other parts will simply start to rust.

Aside from pressure washing the car, another key step is to see how badly the motor got cooked. The alloys really don't like to be heated up like that. Do a leak down test on the motor before investing time on the wiring.

-CTH

Kinda what I was feeling too. SL's are a dime a dozen, and the money could go towards something in nicer shape (its a buyers market). Plus 107 parts demand a premium, so parting it out shouldn't be hard.

Part it out. The fuel injectors alone are over $1200 to replace. By the time you find all the soft parts you will have several thousand in it.

Good information......I am very appreciative to all the advice and comments. I washed the car as soon as I got it home, I will put a pressure washer on it now as well.

Lets see whats under the hood.... Given that they're a "dime a dozen" parts should be easy to find in a pull-a-part. You will probably pick up a bad component or two the first go around, but hey the price is right vs. new....

Sorry to hear of your misfortune. Yeah, post some pics of the damage, I am sure you will get more detailed advice. From the looks of the hood though, it looks to me like the fire was rolling pretty good under there, but thankfully he was able to save the rest of the car. I could be wrong, but since its right in the center of the engine, do you think perhaps a fuel leak caused it? Did he smell any fuel or anything before the blaze? I am guessing the setting in the drive-thru had the engine warm up a little more and if any fluids leaking could have been ignited. I agree that there may be other damage that cant be seen.... could have damaged wires behind the dashboard too (not sure if these have a double fire wall or not?) and that would be big money and lots of work!

I generally keep a fire extinguisher in all of my cars for safety, never know when you will be in a accident or come across an accident and it be needed. This happened in '05. My grandpas '55 Cadillacs generator caught on fire going down the highway (because it had been improperly rebuilt). Thankfully my dad was behind us in his '69 Camaro and he had a fire extinguisher in there and was able to put out the blaze before it did much damage, but when we had raised the hood all of the wires to it were on fire as were the ones running to the regulator up by the headlights. :eek:

I hate to be a vulture, but I'm always looking for a good blue soft top.

Does anyone have advice on where to find a wiring harness...I think I can fix this with my own labor and time. All advice is welcome....except the part where you call me crazy, I got that advice already from the wife.

Try asking the good folks here at peachparts - if they can't supply they can probably point you in the right direction...

Otherwise, perhaps the dealer can help you?

Alternatively - depending on your skills - you could make up your own.

Oh and tell your wife from me - it's only wires!

This must be a Euro car if a 1971 model. 107s didn't start in the U.S. until 1972. If it's a Euro car it would be a 3.5 liter 116 motor rather than a 4.5 117 motor - important issues for buying parts. Post your VIN. There's lots of VIN splits on the harness for both engines.