Re: Fire in the engineroom or- 20 knots and no smoke

["fivetwofive" <CBL302@xxxx>]

Rich,
It could have been a lot of factors,one could have been a case where 
a mouse chewed on the wire,causing it to have a lot of resistance,or 
it just being dry rotted,remember any wire exposed to the elements or 
a high heat area,SHOULD be inspected,and or protected,as the cars are 
22yrs old,AND having crappy British wiring from the early 80's,does 
not help things,I would estimate upwards of 80% of fires in Deloreans 
are caused by electrical problems,and having a battery sitting BELOW 
the main harness/fuse box does NOT help things out(after 22yrs of 
acid fumes spewing all over the main harness,you would wonder how 
there were not more fires)and then to top it off a wooden cover over 
that,and a plastic cover over the fuse box,causing high heat buildup.
The problem with the Delorean was that it was engineered with Minimum 
Standards,instead of maximum Standards/Tolerances,witness the frame
(made out of too light of a gauge metal),the crumple area in front 
that had to have a recall to reinforce,the weak area above the front 
wheel wells,that will shear the complete nose off the car,in a major 
accident,and that is only the structural areas,also the other under 
engineered areas,are the alternator,the front suspension,clutch 
line,fans,radiator,coolant tank,tail light circuit boards,fan fail 
circuit,and many more I cannot think of right now.Where JZD spent 
most of the money on the car itself was on the flashy items,such as 
the SS and the Gullwing doors and the torsion bars,and how the 
interior looked,and basically depended on Lotus engineering,to work 
out the engineering,which was a conflict of interest,since they had 
their own cars that they were trying to sell/engineer to the American 
public/general public,it was NOT in their best interest to engineer 
a "better" sports car,so hence,scrap all previous,engineering,and 
engineer what we all have now sitting in our garages,complete with 
all the above problems. 

Just one last thought,I remember in the early eighties(1984) A friend 
of mine had a Delorean,which he let his Girlfriend use,and as she was 
driving on a major road,some guy,pulled up along side of her and 
started screaming and honking his horn,like a psycho person trying to 
get her to pull over,unknown to her,her(boyfriends) Delorean was on 
FIRE,and because she was going at a good rate of speed all the smoke 
was being blown BEHIND the car,so that she never even knew the car 
was on fire,until that guy pulled up along side of her (kinda like in 
those old western movies where the train is blowing all that black 
smoke behind itself,but the conductor sees/smells none) My point here 
is, NEVER let your girlfriend drive your Delorean!!


Claude
00570



--- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Richard Acuti <racuti1@xxxx> wrote:
> During my DeLorean educational process I have noticed an alarming 
number of pictures of torched D's on various websites on the Internet.
I'm so creeped out by this, that I've mounted an extinguisher 
behind my seat. What was the most common cause of engine fires? Of 
Delorean fires in general?