My brother recently visited LA from Hong Kong; it was his first trip to visit me since I moved out west. Since he doesn’t come to the U.S. often, I decided I’d fix the 1966 Ford Mustang that I bought him 12 years ago when I was in college. After all, I had driven the car all the way from Detroit to LA, so it was time for my brother to finally, after all these years, drive his car. What resulted were two of the most epic days of our brotherhood, followed immediately by a reminder that we should all carry fire extinguishers in our vehicles.
A little backstory on the car in case you haven’t been reading all my work for the past decade: My brother Michael has been obsessed with Ford Mustangs since he first saw the movie Gone in 60 Seconds when he was 10 years old. From that moment on, he’s wanted Ford Mustang memorabilia for every birthday and Christmas. He’s gotten Mustang calendars, shirts, hats, posters — you name it. For the past 25 years, he has faithfully been a true first-gen Mustang fanboy. The car is truly his passion.
Back in college, I used to bicycle past an abandoned 1966 Ford Mustang sitting in a gravel lot, being used to store old tires. Inside I saw lots of notes from prospective buyers: “Hey, if you ever sell this, call me!” the notes read. For a year I’d bike past the Mustang, stop, and gaze at its beauty. The body looked good! And when I wiped the grime from the sheetmetal with my finger, a nice red seemed to pop. “Wow, this thing seems kinda nice!” I remember thinking. “Such a shame it’s abandoned.”
Then, one day, for reasons I have yet to fully understand, I asked a random pedestrian who was walking by if they knew whose Mustang that was. Of course, they did not. “How am I supposed to know?” they replied. “I dunno, just call the number on the side of that car I guess,” they quipped before walking away.
I turned. The car the person pointed at was a limousine, and it did indeed have a number on its side. I gave it a ring and asked about the Mustang. “Oh yeah, that old thing? I’m handling the estate of a professor who recently died, and I gotta get rid of that. Do you want it?”
I replied with a yes, and we agreed on a $4000 price that increased to $4500 at the last second for no reason, possibly due to the lawyer knowing the car was worth more. Anyway, I was happy with that price, even if I had no money as a college student. I scraped the pennies together and then called my brother over Skype. “You see this?” I showed him, pointing to a piece of paper. “This is the title to your new 1966 Ford Mustang.”
Needless to say, he was amped. Of course, he lives in Hong Kong, and I spent the following 12 years storing the car and not having it anywhere near drivable, but then the pandemic happened, I got off my ass and fixed the car, and then when I moved to LA I had to make sure it could drive long distances. The car was ready for Mike’s first drive, so when he came to visit me in early July this year, I was excited to show him.
The weekend was great. It started with me picking my brother and his wife up at the airport in my gold BMW i3S, a car that Mike seems to like quite a bit. We then went back to my place, where the two got dressed, and joined my partner and me in my 1991 Jeep Wrangler YJ to head to a 4th of July Party on the beach.
We ate good food, I introduced Mike and his parter to my friends, and we just chilled next to the Pacific Ocean.
The next few days, we just did LA things. We visited the Griffith Observatory, we ate ice cream and watched 4th of July fireworks, we walked Venice Beach, and we drank icees on Santa Monica Pier (aka the end of Route 66).
It was an amazing few days, especially since he was driving us around in his Mustang, which was running like an absolute top.
I had just had this gentleman (see above) install an entirely new exhaust system with a Flowmaster 90-Series muffler, and though it cost me $800, it sounded incredible, and really let that V8 sing like the car gods intended.
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The clip above is what cars are all about. They can bring so much joy, while taking you to places you have to go anyway — they fill in the gray areas of your life (your commute between locations) and give them vibrant color.
Driving with Mike down the PCH in that old car — his dream car — was a true bucket list item for both of us. It was the perfect car, the perfect road, the perfect compadre. 
The weekend was a dream all the way until the end, when we decided to stop by Chinatown, walk around a bit, and then hop back into Mustang. Mike pumped the gas (which I wouldn’t recommend, since the engine was already hot) and tried cranking. The engine was a bit flooded, so it cranked and cranked and cranked. Then it fired up. He drove a few yards before braking at a stop sign.
That’s when we saw smoke billow from under the hood. It was very obvious to both of us what was happening. He grabbed the fire extinguisher that I keep between the two front seats (see above), I took my shirt off and ran to the trunk to grab a gallon jug of water. By the time I arrived at the front of the car Mike had the fire extinguisher pointed at a bright orange flame atop that mighty V8 engine. A quick jolt of adrenaline shot through my body just as Mike hit the trigger — instantly the flame was gone.
My carburetor had been a bit leaky when I flooded the engine, though it had never been much of a concern — after all, I’d driven the car across the country without issue, as I’d learned how to drive the car without flooding the motor.
Still, I should have ensured that the car could be driven by anybody, and that the carburetor wasn’t leaking anything. I take full accountability for that.
Luckily, I have enough experience working on old cars to know that one should always keep a working fire extinguisher in one’s car. Especially if your car has a carburetor (which introduces many more leak paths than a fuel injection system), you need to make sure your vehicle is outfitted with a fire extinguisher. I’m firm in that belief.
For us, this incident — which could have resulted in one fewer 1966 Ford Mustang in this world — was just a minor inconvenience. Within 45 minutes a tow truck was there with the Mustang on its flatbed.
Mike was sad:
The car suffered no damage other than a burned coolant temp sensor wire; Mike had handled the situation perfectly, and he was actually thrilled by the whole weekend, despite the rather fiery incident there at the end. It’s never a dull moment, he told me as we sat in the cab of the tow truck on our way to Van Nuys. Never a dull moment, indeed.
Here’s a photo of him driving his favorite car down a Santa Monica street:
Just a tip about fire extinguishers in the home: We all know to keep one in the kitchen and one in the garage, but we need to remember to keep them in a spot that’s accessible if there’s a fire. Don’t keep the extinguisher next to the stove, keep it where you can get it in case of fire. Don’t keep one on the far side of the burning car, keep it by the garage entry.
Great story…glad he finally got to drive it and you had a lot of fun. Also, I’m guessing that the extinguisher moved into the red zone after using it- was just gonna add as a reminder to people to also periodically check it to make sure it’s full
That is correct. One quick squeeze with most of the powder still remaining in the extinguisher is all it takes for replacement.
Happy this story didn’t have a worse ending. I keep that same extinguisher in the trunk of my car.
I hate the smell of raw gasoline, so for that reason alone I’d have fixed it.
But I bet Mercedes wouldn’t take off in a plane with a leaking carburetor. I get that a fire at altitude is much worse. In flight training. they went over the steps to handle a fire in the engine compartment–shut off the fuel and then put the plane in a dive to try to blow out the flames. I’m glad I never had to put that into practice.
While it does depend on the carb most systems have fewer potential leak points than a fuel injection system. Plus since most pumps are mounted in the tank all of the fuel line is under much more pressure than a carb system, which with a mechanical pump the only (low) pressurized fuel is between the pump and carb.
These Holley carbs are a nightmare for leaks.
NO they are not, I’ve had dozens of Holley 2bbl and 4bbl carbs going back decades and have worked on way more. Other than a bad accelerator pump diaphragm I’ve never had leaks. Yeah it isn’t great that there are gaskets below the fuel line, unlike the Motorcraft, but giving them a quick rebuild every decade of two is usually sufficient.
Browse the forums and you’ll see lots of folks have issues with Holleys leaking, but you’re right. Just go through them and they’ll remain dry as the Sahara.
It is called regular maintenance. They call it “regular” since it is something that you normally do on a regular basis.
indeed.
You are a monumental brother, David.
Mike too, it seems.
Yo, it is messed up to let a car out on the road that has a known fuel leak; it is literally playing with fire. You created a ‘when not if’ situation for a fire to occur.
Leaking raw fuel is ALWAYS a downed vehicle until the fuel leak is found.
And what does flooding a car have to do with a carburetor leaking fuel? Those two things are not related. You can pump the intake full of fuel from the accelerator pump and still have no external fuel leaking on the carb.
Well we don’t know what carb it is equipped with but if it is the OE carb, or an aftermarket Holley the accelerator pump diaphragm is external to the carb. When those diaphragms fail and they all eventually do, they will drip fuel on the intake manifold. When you pump the throttle they will squirt fuel onto the intake manifold in addition that that flows into the engine. So yeah pumping the throttle can squirt fuel onto the intake in addition to flooding the engine if too much pumping is done. Chances are that accelerator pump diaphragm was the source of the leak. The really sad thing is that they are on the hook in the HELP! section at most auto parts stores for ~$5 and it takes 5 min to replace on the factory Motorcraft carb. https://www.autozone.com/fuel-delivery/accelerator-pump-diaphragm/p/dorman-help-accelerator-pump-diaphragm/721324_0_0
Bingo, it’s a Holley. It can be fussy, no doubt. Normally it’s fine, but that day it decided to be fussy. Alas, it sounded scarier than it really was; not my first little engine fire, likely won’t be my last if I keep wrenching on ol’ junkers. Just gotta make sure we’re prepared for anything like we were here.
What does having a Holley have to do with leaking fuel?
What happened is not being fussy. What happened is you were OK with a fuel leak, and the predictable thing happened: a fire.
I have never had a car I own or one I worked on on fire from a fuel leak.
If it leaks fuel it doesn’t get started until it doesn’t leak fuel end of story.
Great! Not a bad policy. Typically my policy as well, but I let this intermittently leaky Holley go when I shouldn’t have. Luckily it wasn’t a big deal, just a little flame that I was prepared for, but for sure something I’m gonna take care of asap.
No, it was a big deal.
Any fire underhood is a big deal.
Fire can become self-feeding infernos when you add fuel being pumped into them.
You got lucky this time and could many more times.
The problem is that with fire when you are not lucky, it is incredibly dangerous. And not just to yourself.
For real dude, as a person working on cars in the public eye it is irresponsible to have that kind of attitude.
It really wasn’t a big deal to me, but that’s likely because I’ve gotten used to dealing with cars in various states of disrepair through my years of wrenching. But I totally understand and respect your perspective.
A leaking accelerator pump leaks all the time; flooding and leaking have nothing to do with each other.
While they can be mutually exclusive when it is the accelerator pump diaphragm that is leaking it leaks more when you pump the throttle.
Glad it turned out OK, all in all. I’m happy for him that he got to spend a couple days driving it around.
I had a 67 Mustang for about 6 months, and I also had a small fire with it. I had the car jacked up and was trying to remove a broken off bolt in the different housing was I was replacing the leaky seal/fluid. I was heating it with a torch after draining it and I guess the housing got hot enough to ignite the little puddle of fluid still in the bottom. I blew into it to extinguish the small fire(it did go out) but a single flaming drop flew out and landed perfectly in the drain pan which contained diff fluid and transmission fluid. The pan ignited and I just sort of slid it out from under the car and away from anything else flammable before going for the extinguisher. The pan got a little melty around the edges but otherwise it was fine.
I had a similar situation with a rusty carb bolt that I torched while it was still covered in carb cleaner. D’oh!
Has your brother been saving that Geiger hat from the KC days? Or was it a “Welcome back to the USA” gift?
Good eye! That hat is occasionally replacing my 14+ year old tattered Geiger Ready-Mix hat that I took from my youngest brother’s baseball uniform. My father wrote to Geiger complaining how I was misrepresenting them around the world (it went everywhere with me) by wearing such a beatup hat. They responded by sending me a new one.
That’s awesome! I’m out in Lawrence, but make it into KC several times a week. Geiger Ready-Mix still has a big presence
Is he ever moving back? Seems pointless to have this car here for him to drive every 12 years.
Makes me happy.
“I knew the lug nuts were loose, but the wheel hadn’t come off yet so I thought it was ok to let my brother drive it anyway.” Nothing predictable about that either.
Right?
I cannot imagine having a car leak raw fuel and just be like, ‘it should be fine.’
Honestly, an intermittent carb leak is not THAT atypical when dealing with old cars. Usually it’s not a huge deal, and it wasn’t here since we were prepared, but no doubt it’s something I’ll take care of.
I’ve been a fan of the aerosol style fire extinguishers. They’re cheap, easy to replace, and compact. They’re not as effective as a large extinguisher though.
Actually managed to set the alternator on fire in my Grand Cherokee over the weekend, didn’t have an extinguisher in it but a bottle of water put it out. Most spectacular alternator failure I’ve seen.
The Tracy family Motto
So what’s next for the Mustang? A boat trip to Hong Kong?
C’mon, that’s way too straight-forward. Hauled on a trailer to NYC, a boat trip to Rotterdam and then a looooooong road trip to Hong Kong.
Hmm, Russia or Iran, which one do I “want” to drive through?
Ferry via the Caspian Sea, perhaps? Then Hollywood Tracy can say he ferried his Mustang over the Caspian Sea when he’s at posh parties hosted by Dukes and Earls.
That doesn’t help much. He’d still have to drive through places that make the worst part of Detroit look like Solvang.
Your brother just could have logged onto GTA V and visited most of those places. What a wasted flight.
David, you are an awesome brother.
Also, you should always have a fire extinguisher within 5 feet of you. ALWAYS. Eletre is a saint. A SAINT!
I see what you did there, and I only hope that David doesn’t decide to use this if they stay together for the long baul and she puts on a pound or two when she reaches late middle age.
As for the lifespan of extinguishers, I have a rant. We rent out our family-built cabin to meet expenses and as part of that we have to comply with the county rules for renting. One of which is STUPID! They require fire extinguishers to either be new within a year (receipt required) or inspected annually. Fire extinguishers are warranteed for 12 years. An annual inspection costs more than new fire extinguishers. So, this summer I had to replace 3 one-year-old extinguishers with new ones FOR NO REAL REASON. Grrr, so I gave away extinguishers to a neighbor, one of my kids, and to another cabin that doesn’t rent out, so don’t have to comply with that STUPID rule. During the visual inspection the inspector could just look at the gauge and say. “yes, pressure good” and be done with it, but no, I have to replace them each year. Grrr again.
That is silly. There’s a story behind rules like this, though. You’d probably rather repair a smoke-damaged kitchen than rebuild the whole cabin. (Then again, I haven’t seen the cabin, and you can do a lot of stuff with insurance money…)
It’s not a stupid rule. And depending on the jurisdiction, a visual inspection might not be sufficient. A buddy of mine was a second-generation fire extinguisher service guy (he’s now a fire inspector for a coastal SoCal city) and I occasionally helped him and his dad out on service calls. He usually did businesses and apartment complexes, and each extinguisher needed to be fully discharged, disassembled, cleaned, reassembled, and recharged annually before it received its new tag. A visual inspection “rag and tag” wouldn’t cut it, nor should it. It would suck if you pulled out a seven-year-old extinguisher from its cabinet only to discover the pressure gauge needle is stuck in the green and the dry chemical within is clogging the valve from just sitting undisturbed too long. Extinguisher service may not be literally cheap insurance, but it’s better than old extinguishers that may not work when you need them.
Siliness in the difference between the mfr stated lifespan and the service / replacement frequency.
The silliness also seems to be in the relative cost of a new extinguisher ($) versus paying a trained/certified tech to do all of that work. ($$$)
Yeah in our area commercial buildings need extinguishers and they need an annual inspection. So next month I’ll be calling up the company and the guy will come out, look at the gauge, the extinguisher’s expiration date, punch a hole in the tag and scribble on it.
All of our cars have a large fire extinguisher on board. I have twice stopped to put out a fire on the side of the road. Stomping out a fire is not fun. We do live in the flammable foothills of California, so preparing for fire is a given nowadays.
Wait?
Legitimate automotive etiquette question here.
Shouldn’t one couple sit in back and the other couple up front?
Am I wrong?
Does the fact that they are brothers override the proper double date seating arrangement?
This was a serious bro reunion. The womenfolk don’t seem to be up for talking cars, so they can sit in the back seat and talk woman stuff. PT and Mike can sit up front and admire how the car is runn9ing. Married folk do that a lot. It cuts down on crosstalk.
I guess that makes sense.
It’s not just a leisurely drive after all, the two car nuts gotta sit closest to the engine and listen for weird sounds.
Same situation with a rear engine vehicle would be a different scenario though, I suppose?
You’d want one car nerd driving and the other in back despite the reunion?
The fella in back would definitely need to sit on the passenger side to avoid the crosstalk.. er.. make the crosstalk easier to hear…
I want to see them both sitting in the rear of the i3, listening for the range-extender to kick in.
Which both?
The Tracy brothers, of course.
“Then who’s at the wheel?”
“We dropped the women off an hour ago!”
They haven’t moved in an hour, but neither have noticed. Both with their ears pressed to a wheel well listening for odd sounds.
The women-folk return hours later, after a leisurely dinner, to find them in that same state.
AAHHHAAAAHHHHH!!!
In my experience most of the time the girls want to chat and the guys want to chat so we do this arrangement.
If this was an early-in-the-relationship date, where hand-holding/making-out might need to happen at a moment’s notice, then yes.
This configuration is a sign of two stable couples who can go an hour without touching each other.
If the brothers are going to talk to each other more, and they are taller, and will be more comfortable in the front, why not have them sit in the front together? If the ladies get along well enough, and are smaller, and adequately comfortable in the back, then why not sit in the back together? Besides, then they can commensurate about how silly the guys are being, and share a knowing eye-roll when the thing finally catches on fire.
Fair. A lot more thought goes into the seating arrangement in an old two door.
This is an amazing thread
Replying to myself to say that I just noticed that autocorrect changed commiserate to commensurate.
Silly autocorrect.
This is totally on brand for DT, cool car, classic road and an emergency
Sorry, but the primary lesson here is not to have a fire extinguisher (although that’s also important). The primary lesson is that if you have a leaky carburetor, fix the damn thing before you take it for a drive. Sheesh.
This. Is. So. DT. Classic shit here.
As in “It didn’t catch fire before, why would it now?” type mental reasoning here. JFC…
We should be used to this by now.
But no.
The DT loveable doofus schtick is wearing very thin, IMHO. Really hard to respect a guy who plays the clown when matters of safety are concerned. If I had been a passenger when this went down, I’d be righteously pissed off.
I gave him some shit in ’21 because of the brakes…it sounded like he was going to upgrade the MC but nothing else in the system. I wonder if that even happened.
The whole brake system is brand new.
And I went above and beyond by replacing the single with the dual. I don’t play around with brakes!
Yeah, but DT thinks differently and sometimes that works.
For example, I can heel-toe instinctively because I never knew how to tune my carbs and had to keep a toe on the gas under any deceleration to keep the engine from stalling. This applies to multiple American cars from the 1980’s. I do not support Radwood.
The “think differently” argument doesn’t work for me. This is a simple risk analysis problem: what is the potential for catastrophe, and how high is the effort to analyze and fix the problem? Some lessons are cheap, and some are expensive. This was a cheap lesson, and a smart person would recognize that and modify their behavior in the future. One shouldn’t wait for an expensive lesson (car totalled? passenger injured?) to make this a learning experience.
How long have you worked in insurance?
Yeah, I mean, when you’ve wrenched on as many junkers as I have, you just have to prepare for anything. Carbs can be a bugger, and they can intermittently leak. Obviously, pop the Holley off and go through it as soon as you can so it doesn’t surprise you with a few drops when you least want it to (like here), but regardless, just be prepared.
Obviously I’ll get flak anytime I mention something going wrong with one of my cars (same thing happened when I drove the POStal Jeep), but unlike other internet personalities, I wrench a ton on junkers and I always keep it 100% even if it’s not always flattering. Like many of our readers’ machines, my cars aren’t perfect, they can sometimes be fussy and cause issues like this minor fire, but the key is to always be vigilant and ready to solve problems.
Solving problems is great, but preventing them is better. As an “internet personality”, THAT is the primary message you should be conveying.
You’re not wrong, MattyD! Which is why I made that clear in the article.
I don’t work in insurance. But I’ve been lucky enough to have mostly cheap lessons in my life, and have learned to appreciate them and to respond accordingly.
This could have been so much worse, glad you’re both safe and the car was rescued. Preach about extinguishers.
My much older brother always wanted a 1st gen Mustang. He finally found the exact one he wanted, had it a short time, then it burst into flames under a carport. It had been parked and off for days. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to see it since it was such a recent purchase. Luckily it didn’t burn the house down, but guess what, not a single extinguisher in the whole house! Fire did so much damage it was scrapped.
It made me realize I needed extinguishers in both my cars and strategic places in the home. I had one in the kitchen but no where else.
What a shame! Did he end up finding another one?
No, he said he got his dream car, even if it was for a short time, and he was going back to the long line of Honda’s he’s owned.
I work in a place where fire is a constant possibility. We had one break out and I literally grabbed 3 extinguishers to the fire to find that none of them worked. Eventually a bucket of water saved the day, but c’mon!
I had a significant grill flare-up not long after. Used my extinguisher and bought a bunch more just in case. Most are mounted out and visible like. I’ve become a fan of not-fire. If it costs me a few hundred a year, I may be OK with that. (Qualifier: I am f’n old).
I can tell you from experience that garage fires are no joke. Used oil burns hot and smoky.
Thankfully, in our fire, everyone was OK. Even my daughter’s parakeet.
We were out of the house for a year, though, and I lost most of my tools. Thankfully, the insurance company came through.
I’m recycling my gallons of waste oil as soon as I remember to do it. (I probably have 1/2 a car space full of 5 gallon jugs full of waste oil.
I’m glad Mike was able to still have a good time despite the fire. It isn’t always easy to keep perspective when stuff like that happens.
Back in my early 20s I let a friend borrow my Swiss Army knife to tighten down a screw on his subwoofer amplifier. He didn’t really know what he was doing, and managed to short the negative terminal to the exposed part of the positive wire. The spark show wasn’t anything surprising, but the flammability of his car’s trunk mat sure was. He started panicking as his car began burning, and he went running for water. I just casually grabbed a shirt laying in his trunk and smothered the flames, as it wasn’t my first (or last) car fire, but his trunk was pretty burned up. He was pretty upset until I pointed out that his whole car could have been burned to the ground, so some ruined trunk carpet and trim (along with some lingering smoke smell) wasn’t so bad.
I’m sure you’re proud, but this was not the time to show off your California beach bod in front of your brother.
Hulk Smash Fire!
LOL