Kind of ironic seeing as I've spent the day working on keeping the engine temperature down, but I'm in the [!Expletive Deleted!] and I'm hoping you guys can help me out.
I was sitting inside Pig (my 90) cleaning the inside of the windscreen when I smelled something burning. Looked down to see smoke wafting through the bulkhead vents. As I looked back up I could see smoke billowing out from underneath the bonnet.
I jumped out and lifted the bonnet to find a significant fire to the rear of the engine bay, just to the left and down from the heater box.
Luckily I still had the hose to hand as I had been refilling the radiator earlier in the day, and I was able to extinguish the flames. I disconnected the battery immediately and, well, basically flapped around like a big girlie until Vicky calmed me down.
After I had (almost) regained my composure we went and had a further look.
This first picture shows the general area of the fire and shows the melted silver padding(?) which was above the flames.
The second picture shows the bundle of wires that had caught fire.
The third picture shows where the cables emerge having passed behind the engine block up and behind the fuel filter.
Obviously this has scared the hell out of me as I was inside the car, the ignition was off and the keys were in my pocket. Had I not been there, the car would be no more.
To try and isolate the fault, I have removed all the fuses and connected the battery again. I hoped to replace the fuses one at a time to see which circuit was causing the problem.
Unfortunately, even with all the fuses out and the battery connected, the wires started hissing and burning could be smelled once more.
Basically, Pig is underivable until I can get this sorted. I cannot get it to any garage, and even if I could, I have no idea who to take it to.
Should I be looking at a Landrover dealer, an independent garage or a mobile mechanic. I've found a couple of mobile mechs in the yellow pages who claim to be experts at electrical fault finding, but is this beyond that stage and am I now looking at a rewire?
Please help me out here with any suggestions or recommendations as I don't have the foggiest what to do here....
