My '84 Westy ran fine the 870 miles to Busses Nowhere near the Arch, and did
fine the majority of the way back.  I was about 120 miles from home today
and stopped to visit a friend.  As I was leaving, I ooked in the mirror and
saw smoke, so I backed up and parked, then got out to investigate.  When I
opened the license plate door, I was greeted by a small flame near the
coolant tank, so I put it out with my extinguisher and started unloading the
rear to open the hatch.  It was pretty warm and when I opened it, there were
snoldering flames all over the engine compartment.  My friend brought out
his bigger extinguisher and we put the flames out.  It destroyed all ther
wiring and all all the plastic parts in the engine area, including wiring
harness, overflow tank, crankcase vent tower, the left side electrical box,
vac hoses, and I don't know what else.  I think the fire was electrical in
nature, but I'm at a crossroad as to what to do.  The van has 150K on it and
is in pretty good shape, with less than 20K on a rebuilt engine, and less
than 5K on new heads.  Tranny (automatic) rebuilt less than 10K ago.  I'm
debating whether to fix it, cut my losses and sell it as is, or possibly do
the Subaru conversion, then sell the existing engine.  The fire was not hot
enough or ong enough to hurt the engine itself, so I could sell that.  At
this point, I don't know whether I want advice or a pity party!  Anybody
have a similar experience, and what did you do?
Thanks,
Steve Sandlin
Steve's Lock Shoppe

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