Well the guy told me the valve cover gaskets leaked and it needed new heat shields at the floor boards. He even gave me both new items, I just have to install them.

So I'm a few miles down the road and I notice its hot. It's a 83 degree day and the heat won't shut off. Not a biggie, but it is getting hot.

Then I notice some smoke so I figure the valve cover gaskets are leaking. A few minutes later..... theres a lot of smoke and it doesn't smell right. I look down and the smoke is coming from the floor.. the carpet is smoldering and almost on fire so I rip up the rubber floor mat and throw the only thing I have on it, a bottle of ice tea. So I pulled over and shut it off.

Well now it won't start. It acts like the battery is low (Turned out to be the case) and I'm stuck on the highway with no exit in sight. After another try it turned over and fired, but I'm not in a happy place. The heater is on and the heat shield is missing and it's hot enough to ignite carpet.

So I got to the nearest gas station and buy a gallon of water and wet down the carpet since it's already ruined.

So I made it home and I'm looking over things. The belts are totally screwed up.. how did I miss that. They don't align, they're configured wrong and they slip. Then the wife wants to know why there's grease on my new dress pants. Damn, that's not grease, it's melted carpet!!

The guy agreed to send me some new carpet and it's not all bad. The car is still in overall very good condition, but I do have some work to do.

I still love the car and it will be excellent in the near future.

Bruce
:auto:

 

man, i'm glad you finally made it home and the car is o.k. be very careful with heat/fire. fiberglass burns, you know.
good to see your in high spirits. i've heard similar stories from new owners that immediately wondered what they got into.
BTW, i apparently missed all your other threads. what did you get?

 

:eek:

thats scary. i nearly had an interior fire in my long gone 85 Trans AM once, but luckly i managed to prevent it. it still stunk like melted carpet for a week. :leaving:

 

Two words: Fire Extinguisher. Every car on the road should have one.

 

Damn, that one hell of a ride! :eek: Glad you made safe and sound. :thumbs:

 

I agree with Sweet 74. Get a fire extinguisher. Glad you and the car are gonna be okay.

Mike :auto:

 

:skep: I just repaired a small (2”x3”) heat damaged area on the bottom of the passenger floor pan. It was right above the right-side exhaust pipe. Fiberglass was so soft I could have pushed my thumb up through it. If your floor was smoking hot, my guess you need some preventive measures and or repairs. :lurk:
C3 corvettes have many interior heat problems with firewall leaks, torn/deteriorated shifter boot (rubber boot underneath leather shifter boot), missing air dam on trans bellhousing and missing seals within heater-core housing. Yep, a bunch of leaks on these machines. You may want to do a topic search here on the forum.
I was able to just patch my floor pan with fiberglass. Boy was that fun working fiberglass upside-down. :lolg: Got it right on the second try. Now in process of installing adhesive backed shielding on fiberglass floorpans. Bought 12”x12” sheets of thin aluminized coated silicon fiber shielding from CoolTec. Trimmed to fit and used Hi-Temp red RTV to seal edges. Next will be to use header wrap on piping close to floor pans. Should help reduce interior temps also.
:)