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To: AnAmericanMother

Agreed, but it had a pretty good capsule description of the manifold problem.

You didn’t answer my question, though - you do know why they go up in flames, right?


57 posted on 12/10/2008 4:27:19 PM PST by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: Spktyr
Yep, switch overheats and ignites leaking fluid from the master.

Look, I've owned Triumphs, there's nothing you can tell me about all the ways a car can catch on fire. Our TR-6 caught on fire TWICE. In our case, it was a transitional model (iirc, a '76, it had the square tail lights anyhow) which included both the stalk dimmer switch and the old style foot dimmer. If you turned on the stalk dimmer switch while the foot switch was already in the on position, it created a dead short through the battery that bypassed the fuse box (a careful study of a schematic revealed that this was overlooked by the designer -- and they say Ford has bad electrical engineers, they are nothing on Joe Lucas's men.)

The carburetors also had a tendency to leak, and if a diaphragm ruptured (thank you Stromberg) it could spray gasoline on the hot manifold. That never happened to us, thank goodness, although the diaphragms ruptured often enough that we had an impact wrench and two sets of spares in the trunk.

We had three fire extinguishers strategically positioned in the vehicle.

And it must be contagious, because while we were parked at the grocery store, the Chevy Nova NEXT to us caught on fire. We were able to put it out promptly, anyhow.

59 posted on 12/10/2008 8:24:39 PM PST by AnAmericanMother (Ministrix of ye Chasse (TTGC Ladies' Auxiliary - recess appointment))
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