The numerous potential sources of fire scare me to death.
The other day I was working under the dash of my W100 grosser. I moved a stereo amplifier slightly and i scared myself silly as sparks flew and a small fire broke out.
After my heartbeat levelled, I did some investigation and found some complete muppet had wired in a device directly to the battery.. Still not sure what it was but there was a tiny exposed wire, looked like a capacitor of some kind which blew up when i shorted it with the amplifier housing.
Upon further investigation i found there should have been an inline fuse, but someone had decided to use some thick copper wire as a fuse instead of the real thing. GRRRRR
Made me think about how we never really know what pratt could have been working on a used car in the past, without any regard for safety.
Similar story when I building my W124 500TE. The wiring I removed from the donor car was next to lethal. The only reason it hadnt already caught fire was that it hadnt been disturbed. The main live wire runs through the body of the car, which then feeds down onto the starter and alternator. No fuse for the main battery cable.
This "lower harness" degrades over time and the wires had zero insulation left on them once they were moved.. It all just crumbled. A disaster waiting to happen.
I have always had fire alarms in my garages, fire extinguishers all handy and I hardly leave anything switched on apart from battery conditioners..
Now I feel that the most likely things to self combust are our own cars!
