Taking Stock - Faine 461

By: Jon Faine

Date: 13.03.2022

Assessing the damage after the E-type fire

My Series 2 1970 E-type Jaguar caught fire a month ago. The full catastrophe was described in all its sad detail in Unique Cars #460, explaining that the Lucas electrics – the weak link in so many old English cars – gave me the fright of my life.

Sitting in a car, inside your garage, when it spontaneously combusts is not in any way amusing.

Many old car enthusiasts have fire extinguishers in their cars and their sheds. Hardly anyone has ever used them. I have had extinguishers sitting in my shed for forty years and never thought they would ever be triggered. But when you need them – boy, do you need them.

Now the dust has settled – literally – I have been able to assess the full extent of the fallout. As is so often the case, whether talking about cars, buildings or appliances, putting out the fire can be as damaging as the flames themselves.

The E-Type being flat trucked out of Chez Faine

The powders used in small portable extinguishers are corrosive if not cleaned up. Removing every speck and crystal is nigh impossible, and the methods required for metal are different to those that apply to leather, vinyl, rubber and other porous surfaces.

Not that it pleases me in any way, but I have now become somewhat knowledgeable about these obscure details. Expert advice from the fire brigade married with some experienced car restorers has given me a glimmer of hope that the E-type will return to the road.

The powder needs to be first vacuumed then flushed out of every metal surface, every crack and crevice, inside door cavities, behind the dash, in every corner. Leather and trim need a different approach – they need to be vacuumed then wiped with a neutralising agent made of methylated spirits and water mixed 10:1.

I have had the car professionally cleaned, seats and trim out as much as possible so as to establish what can and cannot be re-used. It has also given me a chance to establish the full extent of the fire damage and along the way a more precise assessment of the cause. Initial suspect was the ammeter, but as we can now forensically study the damaged components more clearly after the powder has been removed, it is clear that the ammeter was wrongly accused. Sorry ammeter.

Now we can see that the headlight switch was the hottest part of the fire. Melted plastic from the broken innards dripped down onto the trim surrounding the radio console and triggered the flames from there. The hessian backing on the vinyl trim is highly flammable. Instead of an electrical short only melting the covering on the 50 year-old wires it turned into actual flames that at one stage went as high as the rear vision mirror.

Repairing the car could involve a complete strip down and repaint, new trim and basically a new car from the firewall back. But that just seems over the top, as so much of the cockpit has been untouched by anything more damaging than smoke.

Not a pretty sight

There is no damage on the engine side of the firewall, and no damage aft of the dash. The task therefore is to see if the entire dash can be rebuilt without needing to strip out everything else from the entire monocoque. Neither firewall nor scuttle has buckled from heat, although there is some local paint blistering. The wiper mechanism will need to be removed and re-bushed.

At the time of writing, I am awaiting advice and costings to replace the windscreen, all switches and instruments in the central cluster, an entire new loom and the damaged fuse-box. The plastic dashboard vents and the dash fascia and top is cooked as is the central radio binnacle and the new Bluetooth radio and speakers as well.

New carpets will be needed and I will not trust the old seat belts – the slightest deficit there can be catastrophic. I suppose seat belts are like fire extinguishers – you take them for granted, but if you ever call on them to do what they are designed to do, you are suddenly deeply appreciative of their function.

I think of myself as a fairly robust person as I am sure do many of us. But I have been astonished at how profoundly this small – tiny – emergency has affected me. I had the most minor of burns to my hands, treated with a few days of ointment. I had a few lungs full of fumes and smoke, which made me cough for only fifteen minutes. But even now a month after, I am still rethinking what happened and how I might have got to the source quicker.

A battery kill switch will undoubtedly be part of the new wiring loom. As well as installing fire extinguishers, I now strongly recommend isolation switches to your precious cars too.

From Unique Cars #461, Jan 2022

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