68 Camaro Suffers a Fire

[69RALLYSPORTZ28]

I was thinking about adding aftermarket air conditioning to a 68 Camaro to become a daily driver until I saw this picture.
Does it look like this fire started under the dash and perhaps with the under dash aftermarket air conditioning?

[Charley]

Can't blame it on aftermarket ac. Probably shoddy wiring..

[dannystarr]

It could have nothing to do with the AC factory or not. Any number of things could of been the cause. Bottom line, it's a sad site to see. ... Danny

[william]

Seen plenty of first gens back in the day with add-on stuff hot-wired directly to the battery.

[z28z11]

Quick but true story - I drove my '69 Z back and forth from school in the early '70's, about 180 miles one way. Since I parked it on the street near the dorm (shudder, for real), I decided to equip it with a motion sensitive alarm, wired directly tp the battery, and added a short lenth of chain and a padlock to the hood to keep anyone from raising the hood to steal the battery or disable the alarm system. Driving one afternoon to the local mall, the car suddenly died, and smoke started coming from under the hood. I jumped out, popped the hood latch (like an idiot, no fire extinguisher handy), and reached in and grabbed the chain - wrong move. The chain had dangled over into the motion alarm and got caught up in the horn relay wiring, and produced a dead short to ground through the chain, It was RED hot, and burned the daylights out of me. Fortunately, when I pulled the hood open, it pulled the chain off of the terminal, and ended the short before it burned the car up. I took the chain off, the Z restarted, only damage was a couple of fried wires and blisters on my hand. Learned a lesson about unfused circuits.

The Z was parked on the street for a couple of years, I even left it there a few weekends and drove my girlfriend's Dodge home (slant 6, better mileage). Never a single problem with theft, vandalism, or anything else. Minor miracle and sickening when I think about it - really lucky.

Steve

[Sauron327]

Two of my friends cars had dash fires because of mice.

[CantRepeat]

Two of my friends cars had dash fires because of mice.

Those little bastards can get in the tiniest of holes!!