Hello all... a quick reminder to make sure your battery is tightened down. I just got this truck a month ago and never checked the tightness of the battery mounts. Stooopid me.

This is how I know: I took a sharp turn on a slight downhill embankment and the truck lost complete power. Not knowing what the heck I coasted to a stop only to see smoke from the engine bay. I could smell electric burning and it turns out the coil ground wire to the engine block had melted and caught the airbox on fire. It was a tiny fire but unchecked could have been bad.

It turns out that the battery slid to the right/passenger side on a hard left turn (it's a smaller wrong sized Walmart battery so it slid in the tray) and the battery mount which is grounded to the front/grill area contacted the + terminal. That caused the short and subsequent heating of wires. Not good. I know this is a bit out of the ordinary but it's a good idea to keep it tight and never cross those beams. Time to find a new rubber boot too.
all the best.

 

i had something like this happen to mine but i was out on a trail with a lot of trees around... but mine just burned up wires no fire, and i have an fire extinguisher in my rig at all times...

 

Yep.. an extinguisher is a must with older vehicles. I think it was the airbox being covered with oil and grease on the underside that really helped the fire along. Another good reason to keep the engine bay cleaner.

 

Yup, electrical shorts can be fearsome things. I remember the first time I tried removing a starter without first pulling the battery cables, lol. Got a socket wrench on the positive cable on the starter, bumped it against the block, and it was like the 4th of July! When I recovered from my surprise, I discovered that the socket wrench had welded itself to the block and the cable insulation was melting quick. I managed to knock the wrench loose, and ended my first lesson in respect for battery power, lol.

I'll 3x the advice to keep an extinguisher in the vehicle, but add a warning that many vehicle fires will laugh at even a 5 pound extinguisher. Fuel-fed fires will get everything so hot that when the extinguisher runs out (just a matter of seconds), the hot metal will quickly re-ignite the blaze. For serious vehicle fires it takes a combination of hose to cool things off and dry chemical extinguishers (a bunch of them) to snuff the flames. As I learned fighting a mean fire in a VW bus in Napa Valley some years ago...

 

You are extremely lucky. Ask MightyMouse about vehicle fires...

 

I used to watch WWII documentaries about tank battles and they'd show tanks that had been hit by shells burning up, and I would just scoff and say to myself, "That's BS, how does a metal tank catch on fire and burn?" Now I know better.

Re the little WalMart battery that the OP mentioned caused the fire, I used to run one of those. I think it was for a riding lawnmower, but I was dirt poor and needed a new battery and it was the cheapest one I could find.

Mine could not be clamped in securely either, so I found a piece of big rig tire tread by the side of the road and stuck that under the clamp to keep the battery from bouncing around. The damned thing only lasted me a year or so, because the cold cranking amps were way too low for a 22re engine and starter. So I didn't end up saving any money by buying "the cheap battery". I ended up buying two batteries instead of just one good one.

 

ARC welding 101 huh? That's amazing and very scary all at once.

 

Yes...it's on my list to replace it. I ended up bending the battery clamp to hell in a vise so that it would fit between the battery top caps and flush. It's not going anywhere now. It came that way from the previous owner and I'd imagine whoever installed it just threw it in and didn't give a rat's ass on how it mounted.

 

This is why I always buy a brand new bungee cord to hold my battery in place when I buy a new rig. Can't have that thing bouncing around in there.











Just kidding! On a more serious note I do make sure and check the hold downs on my battery before I do any off road stuff, can't afford to let it burn to the ground after all this work.