• Steel Soldiers now has a few new forums, read more about it at: New Munitions Forums!

  • Microsoft MSN, Live, Hotmail, Outlook email users may not be receiving emails. We are working to resolve this issue. Please add support@steelsoldiers.com to your trusted contacts.

m1008 birthday adventure

Hello all.
Yesterday was my birthday and my dad (tom2147) and I were going to haul some furniture to my grandma's house to store in her basement until i am able to move into an apartment next month. So we hooked the m1008 up to our m101 trailer, and proceeded to load the furniture in the truck and trailer. At this point in the process everything is going smoothly the furniture fit perfectly, we didn't drop anything, it didn't rain all was great:grin: After we get everything loaded up we hit the road for our lengthy 5 mile haul. This is where things get interesting, I am driving the m1008 and my dad is behind me in our Ford Ranger, we make it about a mile down the road when i smell smoke. I look down in time to see some smoldering insulation fall from beneath the dash and land on my foot:shock:... Uh Oh! So i pull over in a church parking lot and turn everything off and get out of the truck. I can only imagine what my dad was thinking when i opened the door and smoke came rolling out of the cab:-?. He pulled in behind me and we popped the hood and we were checking everything out nothing was on fire yet. So we were standing there talking about what our next step should be when i look in the cab and the heating duct is on fire. I said "I see some flames under the dashboard" all calm cool and collected like ya do when things are on fire. I was trying to figure out what was on fire before i acted on it, safety first! My dad however springs in to action and leaps in the truck reaches under the dash and grabs whatever was on fire with his hand... It was melting plastic.. :shock: I'm sure you all can imagine what happens when you try to grab a hold of melting plastic.. it doesn't end well. My dad then yelps in pain and shook his hand and flings molten plastic on his face and the seat and climbs out of the truck. I asked him why he would do such a thing and called him a name that rhymes with um bass and then I jumped in the truck and stomped out the remaining fire with my foot (protected by a shoe - unlike my dad's bare hand). After i was confident that the fire was out i got back out to attend to my genius father he was ok his hand and face were mildly burnt and his pride was also slightly injured but all in all he was alright.
When the smoke cleared out of the cab and my dad's hand stopped hurting we searched the dashboard for the source of the problem and discovered that a mouse had made its home against the heater core and his home was not fire proof. We went back home and cleared the duct work of any nests and melted plastic. We also discovered that the fuse to the heater was blown, we haven't replaced the fuse yet because we want to check it all out and avoid another fire. And we are also going to keep fire extinguishers in all our MV's after this incident. Here are some pics hope the story was entertaining!!
 

Attachments

chevyCUCV

New member
598
5
0
Location
Massachusetts
Ouch! Plastic is the worst when it sticks to your hand

Good thing it was a minor fire, just another repair on a cucv:)

I hate mice, worst is when you find them crawling on you:-o
 

dstang97

Well-known member
1,859
30
48
Location
Clover, SC
That same thing happened to my buddies truck. When they are parked those little bastards ruin everything. They love heater ducts. I always keep mouse traps in my truck when they sit for more than a week. Do you need another plastic piece? Im scrapping my truck.
 

HOWEY

Member
159
1
18
Location
ireland
Check your fire ext.

I had a 77 M880 that had a small engine fire once while on a road trip in the uk, luckly my buddie had a dry powder extinguisher on hand and quickly saved the day, only snag with powder is that it covers everything and i was still cleaning that engine bay 3 years later.....

My point to all is carry a working extinguisher, when i bought my 09 the previous owner had the last original from the us army in it, date checked sept 94 :shock:
Now i carry two modern ones front and rear just in case.......
 

engineman2

Member
118
2
18
Location
Enon, Virginia
Glad everything turned out ok with the truck. It shouldn't be too hard to replace that heater duct. I carry extinguishers in all of my vehicles to prevent fires. My M1008 as well as some turbocharged machines get CO2 extinguishers so powder doesn't get everywhere and to stop runaway diesels.
 

Goose2448

New member
1,500
28
0
Location
TEXAS Hanover, Pa/Bokeelia, Fl
Speaking for Extinguishers, make sure you service it once a month. Turn it up side down and hit it with a mallet. Make sure it has good pressure. I had just gotten my work truck when a union worker decided to put the diesel powered welder next to the stack of insulation. I happen to noticed the flames. I grabbed my ABC and it shot some but not much. Apparently no one serviced it ever. We grabbed the water hose we were using and I got it all put out. We turned off the welder and the GC was pissed. Then here comes one of the other welders, flipped it back on and went back to work. I never thought about a CO2 extinguisher for the runaway, but I think I will pick one up just for that.
 
Hey thanks a bunch dstang and why I looked under the hood I'm not sure it seemed like the right thing to do at the time lol I think at the moment I wasn't sure what the cause of the fire was. I bet it looked very similar to that before the mouses house burnt down and all in all it wasn't a tragedy just a good story for later lol
 
Top