So i was out of town and my ex borrowed my '06 liberty crd to tow a small trailer. She drove about 50 miles each way and on returning and dropping off my car at my place, she smelled smoke, looked under the car and saw a fire the size of a bowling ball under the engine. She couldn't find one of the several fire extinguishers and called the fire dept, luckily no one was hurt, no dry brush or nearby forest burned and all is mostly well except as she told me over the phone, the engine part is melted.
Turns out it wasn't too bad relative to what i imagined having happened. As far as fires go. I'll post pictures below.
Best i can tell the elephant hose mod that the car had when i purchased the vehicle in 2012 failed. The hose that ran down under the engine bay and vented under the car, failed halfway down the engine bay. My best guess is with 100+ degree ambient temps and a long highway drive back to my house, the failure of the hose resulted in super hot exhaust gas dumping onto what mustve been tape or plastic that was blasted just the right way enough to get smoldering and then get to burning.
The result was that it essentially completely melted through the coolant reservoir tank, spraying super hot coolant all over the engine which actually probably helped as a fire suppressant and could explain the relatively low amount of damage. As far as i can tell aside from the coolant tank, the main radiator hose and the ac line and some of the small vacuum line that runs along the firewall to the drivers side, not much else was damaged. The main wiring harness exposed in the photo seems to have no breaks. The engine was off when the fire started going fully so i'm thinking maybe that helped with the lack of obvious shorts.
I turned the key to the on position and aside from a water in fuel light, the computer seems alive and i was able to crack the windows. The engine light is on and i haven't checked the codes yet, but just wanted to get everyone's take here that may have an informed one.
1)Is it likely the elephant hose failure midway in the engine bay could've caused these types of temps? I say it failed and didn't melt because there was a horizontal tear at the hose failure point and wasn't melted.
2)What is the piece of equipment with the yellow circle? Behind the turbo. Can't find a reference for it although it seems to have a small vacuum line coming off of it.
3)can i just replace the coolant overflow tank, the main radiator hose drain and replace coolant and see if it starts or do i need to address all the vacuum line stuff too?
4) there seemed to be a temp sensor fitted into a depression on the underside of the coolant overflow tank. Can't find reference for that anywhere either. Not the engine temp sensor...so i guess it's a coolant temp sensor? Is it critical?
Also feel free to make ex jokes. We're still best friends. I don't think she sabotaged it but i am aware those types exist too. she's a hot air balloon pilot and was taking her small balloon trailer to an inspector for her annual inspection. Mine is her only means of moving that trailer so for those wanting to play whodunnit, she's not a suspect!
Thanks for reading this long mess and for any input ya'll might have. I'm optimistic this old beast will ride again. She's got 260K miles on her and overall has been a painless car to own and pretty easy to work on.
-Bill
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