Yada Yada Yada . . . Car was dripping Fire!!
 

I don't know what happend on Thursday night but my rear diff started to make the winning noise, Some sort of oil all over the back of my car and when i stopped my car was dripping fire. My guess, rear diff blew a bearing, over heated, blow all its oil, got extreamly hot, and caused my oiled underbody to ignite. I even have melted plastic in my trunk. What a great start to a great weekend. So my car is at the mechanic (yes the same one who still has to fix my ABS, and i'm guessing the rear diff is the source of the unknows noise) and the parts car will have to be towed over in case they need parts.

I guess we will see, any one else have this happen to them???

Never happened to me, never heard of it happening, but I did see a guy driving a van while his engine was on fire last year.

I taught i smelt something when i was driving, but i just thaught it was just the Hamilton smell. But it wasn't untill i exited off the highway when i noticed the big trail of smoke comming out from behind me.

That's understandable.
It's a good thing our fuel tanks are fire resistant.

Anything besides the diff get severely damaged?

no, melted plastic in the trunck under the carpet, underbody looked melted a bit but never really took a good look. I'm still waiting on the damage report.

The same thing happened to "devonsvx2". Do a search in the European forum for the whole story.

Don't scare me .... do you have a picture of how your rear differential look now? pls update what happened.

I have been telling Tom that my rear diff is whining...but he doesn't think so. I have been driving my car about two k miles still whining...I haven't got a chance to fix the whining from the rear end... but I do keep an eye on my rear diff no leaks or anything on the external.

I don't know if i can get pics, i left my dad with the car, i needed one for work, and he said he would look after it. but when i find out what happend i will post. But from other cars that have a wine from the rear diff, I would check the fluid level. i know we have a wine from the rear diff on our van and its because the fluid level is low, the blow off valve was rusted shut, causing over heating and fluid to be pushed out from expansion in other methods. But we fixed that problem and still have a bit of a wine i guess form damage. We just have to make sure that we check on it from time to time.

and i am reading what happend to devonsvx2. I wonder if its the same thing becuase there was some sort of melted plastic but i don't know where from.

Thanks

Read about what happened to doug maire also.......

http://www.subaru-svx.net/forum/showthread.php?t=33114

interesting, thats 3 fires all pretty much about the same thing. I think my dad is trying to contact our insurance company. When i find out what happend to mine i will get back to everyone.

Thanks for the extra reading amterial. At least mine isn't the first car to catch fire.

Great, something new to have nightmares about. :(

I know I linked it somewhere here, but there was a story on the cadillac forums about a guy driving 6 hours with oil dripping onto his exhaust causing fireballs to fall from his car...Apperently alot of people honked...
He made it home fine:)
Good Luck with the repairs

Well think about it this way... If the damage is restricted to the rear diff, I can honestly say it have nothing to do with the tranny. The transfer assembly inthe transmission is fatr weaker that the rear diff and in any case it would fail there first.

My guess would be one of two things... Your vent is clogged causing built up pressure due to expansion to push oil out of the seals and over heat the rear due to lack of oil....

OR your tires on each side are diff rotational diameters and you are overheating your LSD unit making it red hot on the highway and causing the oil to burst into flames... Just a couple things to think about

Tom

I smelled burning oil when my engine was leaking oil off the valve covers, because it dripped onto the exhaust and started smoldering... god that was fun. now the leaks are almost all fixed (waiting on cam caps)

my 240 shoots fireballs out the exhaust

good 2 foot long ones, too.

and no, it isn't running rich. it's running 15 pounds of boost, divided wastegate and then 3 inches of straight piping all the way to the back.

ever see videos of the koenigsegg CCX? that's what my car does at the track.

Wow interesting. :|