Imperial Car Club Forum

Had an engine fire last season and getting a shop to rebuild the engine. Never used them before, so I hope it goes well. Thought I'd share the pictures I have so far in case anyone was curious.

Some pics of the engine bay area...

Some pictures of the engine tear down.

Hood repainted due to fire damage.

Painted engine bay...

Still waiting to get the engine back from the machine shop... should be back any day now.

what caused the fire ?
leaky carb ?

Not sure exactly what caused it. The car was running fine for about 30 seconds. I had the hood up thankfully as it was the first start of the season, then suddenly there was a loud explosion and the breather filter/cap shot off, hit the hood, and shot across the yard. Then a big fireball blew up and engulfed the engine.

Best I can tell, there was an explosion in the crankcase and the back pressure from that blew the fuel out of the carb's fuel bowls and down the back of the engine. Took three fire extinguishers to get it out. Two that I had in the garage and one from my neighbor's house. Thankfully insurance actually covered it. I was really surprised, didn't think insurance would cover something like that.

As the car was parked backwards in the garage at the time, my wife called 911 because there was a risk the house might catch on fire. They sent 3 large fire trucks, 2 pickup trucks (one was the fire chief), and 3 sheriff SUVs. Even after telling them we had the fire out, they would not cancel the call, they were committed! I always give my neighbors a good show with tow trucks either coming or going, and now fires.

Small update - the shop let me know that the pistons did not fit as they should and were just a little off on size. The guy said he never has cut corners before and isn't doing it now, so he shipped the pistons back, the manufacturer admitted they were not perfect and he got a whole new set delivered on Friday. Hoping the new set are perfect and we can get this wrapped up.

They finally got back to me on the cost of rebuilding the trans, and depending on how bad it is, it will be anywhere from 1000 to 1500. I do not know the going rate of these trans, but that seems reasonable to me, so I told them to go ahead as the trans was slipping and not kicking into 2nd gear when it should. As insurance will not cover the trans, that cost will be on me.

One other item I'm getting done while it's in there is the sending unit in the tank seems to be full of fuel and not floating as it always reads near empty and the needle does bounce around as if it's getting some type of signal from movement. He said it should be under 150 to fix that, so that's well worth the investment rather than me trying to deal with dropping a gas tank.

As the weather is starting to warm up, I'm really looking forward to driving it again, but I'm guessing it's another month away at least before getting this thing back.

Their first mistake was removing the transmission and torque converter together. The trans is removed from the bell housing, and the bell and torque converter are removed later. This is all spelled out in the service manual. The converter nose is not long enough to properly support it. I rebuild a lot of these and have seen many pumps and front components ruined by trying to install a trans that way. The price he quoted is reasonable, depending on parts. Pumps are very hard to come by, so you may have only one shot at this.