Minimans Landrover been on fire.

Just to let all my mates know I have had a fire in the Landy so I may not be able to come to the next briercliffe meeting.

I was coming home from skipton tonight ( 22/9/05 ) with my brother following a stupid woman which you could tell was on her phone as she could not keep in a straight line and kept touching the brakes. You could see with the lights of the car she was tailing that she had a phone strapped to her Ear via a hand.

So whilst cursing her and trying not to touch the main beam I found that the headlights dimmed to half. I asked my brother if he noticed as they seemed crap as normal. He replyed yes they did. I then thought may be I lost dip on one light. Then it struck me that funny smell of molten plastic wire. I am sure you can think what went throught my head at that moment as it was pitch black outside. S**T.......

I then decided it was time to hit the brakes and pull off the road RAPID..
Pulled out the engine kill and turned off the ignition. Where is the smoke coming from was the next thing to go through my mind. For about five seconds. Balls get the battery disconnected. No light plenty of smoke and glowing wires from behind the dash. As I was trying to pull off the battery terminal and my brother was blowing the flames now behind the dash out I remembered there was some plyers on the dash. 40seconds later the battery was disconnected. OK what next..........!

We disconnected the alternator and restarted the landy with the key buy my brother holding the battery terminal and touching the battery when I had the key turned. We then tied the battery terminal out of the way and tryed to drive home between the spaces of there being no cars on the road which was very hard as the cars coming at you blinded you. we waved some builders over in a transit and asked them if it was ok to follow them back to my home. They allowed us and I and my bro PLUS the good old Landy are all here to fight another day.....

Alot of wireing to sort out tho.........

Sounds like you had a lucky escape from 'the end' through quick thinking.
Most car fires are terminal!
Good luck with the wiring.

Mike

Yeah, sad to hear your tale of wiring woe, but good to hear you came through it safely.

Bummer though, electrics SUK!

Been in the garage all day sorting it out. Looks like a main beam wire behind the dash had been rubbing for a while and it just rubbed to much.
Now there are 4 more fuses behind the dash and I have bought a rally battery kill switch so I can isolate the battery if it ever happens again. Good job its a Diesel as if it was a petrol I would be stuck at the side of the road all night untill daylight. I have all the electrics working now except the rear wiper , washers , Fog light. Thats not a problem tho.
So the good news is I WILL BE PLAYING AT BRIRECLIFFE ON THE 1st of october......

Glad to hear you're all up and running again! I had a fire under the bonnet of my Tdi Discovery not long back. Just filled up at Tesco's, pulled off the forecourt and smoke came ****ing out from under the bonnet. (Ass clenching moment or what!) Popped the bonnet and the Glow plug wires were doing more than glowing! Flames gently blowing in the wind, burning all the old oil, ran like mad back to the forecourt to grab the fire extinguisher but thankfully the flames died out within seconds. The glow plug timer relay failed to switch off! I honestly thought the thing was going up! THE JOYS OF OWNING A LAND ROVER????????????????