100 series engine catches fire

a bit surprising his insurance co didn't send an investigator to attribute blame if possible ... that sounds like an expensive write off.

Cheers
Andrew.

the investergor could not give an answer and was to get back to toyota

I heard it did $35k of improvements to the streetscape, really streety bad luck that

who has he upset?????

I nearly set fire to a brand new cruiser at work - at first i thought it was my fault but closer inspection revealed there was an un insulated part of the battery cable near the terminal, not much but just enough to short out on the duel battery tray causing the earth wires to start smoking. Ever tried seeing how fast you can pull battery terminals off when you have to?

A friend of mine had the same thing happen to him. he was standing next to his 3 week old 2002 td cruiser and it just caught fire, engine was off. Claimed insurance and got a new one... he never found out if the insurance company went Toyota for the claim... Michael

In the turbo diesel, I recall the two batteries are parallelled by a cable running across inside the cross-member in front of the radiator (a factory job, not aftermarket). I never did like this idea, as in a collision, the connecting cable is likely to get caught up with the damaged metal and start a fire.
I doubt if this was the case in your B.I.L's problem, but thought at the time it was poor design, and should have been run further back on the firewall.
Gerry

It could have been a battery failure. Sometimes, when a battery fails internally, usually throgh an internal short circuit across a cell, it gives of a large amount of Hydrogen Sulphide, i.e H2S or Rotten Egg Gas. This gas is extremely explosive having a very wide range of "explosive limit". i.e it doesn't take much electrical spark to set it off of much of any sort of ignition really.

All tech stuff I know. Suffice to say it goes bang real easy.

I've had this happen on a truck and it makes a fair old "Whoompahhh" when it goes.

Perhaps???

Whereas a fire, perhaps or not deliberately lit doesn't go "Bang". It just burns.

Bilbo

Had a fire under the bonnet of a 60series once because the 2nd battery was changed, and the slightly different terminals meant the pos was touching the bonnet when shut, shorting it out badly - made a mess of the battery and the fire came from the battery earth lead catching fire from the heat of the huge current flowing thru it.