<VV> Oops! Set my CORSA on fire......

Ray Rodriguez III ravensong13 at verizon.net
Sun Dec 6 23:24:45 EST 2009


Well, only a tiny bit.....  no fire damage.  

Today I found my cigarettee lighter was inoperative.  I looked underneath the dash and discovered the wire was off.  I hooked the wire back up and pushed the lighter in....  pulled it out after 30 seconds, but before it popped and found it was still stone cold.  

Just to test the socket I plugged in a 12 device to the socket.... no power.  I pulled out the adapter, pushed the lighter back in and started driving the car...  

About 20 minutes later I started picking up a little whiff of something I thought might be the belt....  started to pull over....   my fiance' started to panic a bit at this point as smoke started pouring out of the dash....   I tilted my head sideways to ponder the situation while I switched off the ignition and reached for the chrome fire extinguisher mounted between my front seats......

I then noticed that the smoke was coming from the area of the lighter....  I reached up, carefully gripped the wire and yanked it off the back of the lighter socket....   the wire... which had gotten hot enough to melt the insulator off of it.....  struck metal on its way out and set fire to the insulator....   scared me a sec but I gave it a good huff and a puff and it went out....   

I had my fiance' run back to the engine compartment and disconnect my battery quick release....  looked for any futher sign of damage (found none), duct taped the exposed wire all up to make sure it couldnt short out....... reconnected the battery and went on my way.... things seem to be ok.

Much to her credit my girl didn't make an undue fuss about it.


Now my question is......   shouldn't this have blown a fuse rather than start a fire?



Ray Rodriguez III
click here for a pic of me and my car http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f90/Swiftblade13/?action=view&current=sigphoto3.jpg
Lake Ariel, PA
CORSA member
66' Corsa 140/4 hot rodded coupe
65' Corsa 140/4 coupe (under construction)


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