Starlight
Member
- 215
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- 18
- Location
- West Palm Beach, Fla
Hey guys, Capt.T here. Sharing this story in hopes it helps someone. Love my HMMWV and she "works for a living". As some of you know I have a support organization for returning wounded and disabled, Palm Beach Troop Support. The HMMWV is front and center at all functions and we love her but ...
She was parked out front and my wife jumped in to move her to the garage one day. She turned the start lever after the wait light went out and bam ! Big spark flies out what she described was the dash area, large clunk sound ! She runs and gets me. I ran out not thinking too much and see there's smoke coming from the rear. I grab a rench to disconnect batteries asap. At this point I tell her to grab extinguisher. I was disconnecting cables when the smoke turned to fire. Finally got the cable off, jumped under and extinguished fires in rear. Thanks God fires out and stayed there for a bit to make sure nothing else happened.
Here's what happened: Starter bolt/s sheared off. Starter comes lose. Hot cable hits the body. Parking brake gets hot and arcs out cables. Cables catch fire. Fire put out
Question: Why nothing else damaged ? Why did the shunt not give ?
Next event : Drill out broken starter bolts and easy out. First one a breeze. Second one was hell. Went through 3 expensive drill bits, and here's why. The last guys broke off a tap ! Then I guess he said the hell with it and left just one bolt and the old school support to hold this heavy ass starter. What I eventually removed was a broken tap ! That's why I went through the bits, it wasn't a bolt after all.
Anyway, hope this helps and I would love to know if anyone has been through anything similar . There are a lot of folks here with broken starter bolt issues but I don't see anything where the starter landed on part of the body and grounded itself until fire. And again, the did the shunt hold ??
Be safe and God bless this great country, Capt.T/ Palm Beach Troop Support
She was parked out front and my wife jumped in to move her to the garage one day. She turned the start lever after the wait light went out and bam ! Big spark flies out what she described was the dash area, large clunk sound ! She runs and gets me. I ran out not thinking too much and see there's smoke coming from the rear. I grab a rench to disconnect batteries asap. At this point I tell her to grab extinguisher. I was disconnecting cables when the smoke turned to fire. Finally got the cable off, jumped under and extinguished fires in rear. Thanks God fires out and stayed there for a bit to make sure nothing else happened.
Here's what happened: Starter bolt/s sheared off. Starter comes lose. Hot cable hits the body. Parking brake gets hot and arcs out cables. Cables catch fire. Fire put out
Question: Why nothing else damaged ? Why did the shunt not give ?
Next event : Drill out broken starter bolts and easy out. First one a breeze. Second one was hell. Went through 3 expensive drill bits, and here's why. The last guys broke off a tap ! Then I guess he said the hell with it and left just one bolt and the old school support to hold this heavy ass starter. What I eventually removed was a broken tap ! That's why I went through the bits, it wasn't a bolt after all.
Anyway, hope this helps and I would love to know if anyone has been through anything similar . There are a lot of folks here with broken starter bolt issues but I don't see anything where the starter landed on part of the body and grounded itself until fire. And again, the did the shunt hold ??
Be safe and God bless this great country, Capt.T/ Palm Beach Troop Support