Re: A frightning experience(Part 1)

["Dave Swingle" <dswingle@xxxx>]

One at a time - The smoke was probably clutch fluid on the crossover exhaust
pipe. The squeeling noise is the now-wet clutch disk. Sounds like time for a new clutch and slave. You may even have a larger leak in the hydraulic tubing, judging from your description of the "soft" clutch pedal. 

RE the light switch - it is kind of a POS. I'm on my third one, 
unfortunately the failure mode is pretty much as you describe, but 
without the fire. My first one just melted internally and quit 
working. Not much you can do to prevent this, it is just a symptom of 
high-resistance (old/dirty) contacts in the switch heating up. The 
second one quit latching (try driving 25 miles with your finger on 
the button to keep the lights on - in a 5-speed car - in traffic). 

You are probably about to find that cleaning up the fire extinguisher 
remnants will be the biggest pain of this experience. I did the same 
thing in a non-DMC, (i.e. shooting a dry chemical exinguisher into 
the dashboard). The only way to clean this up will be to disassemble 
the dash darn near to the component level. The chemical used is not 
very nice stuff, you really do want to get it out of there. Keep in 
mind that it is now inside the switches, radio, heat ducts etc. 

Good luck - sounds like you have a couple of projects on your hands. 
Keep us posted.

Dave 


--- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxx, "Nathan E. Green" <gzen21@xxxx> wrote:
First, his clutch line:
>As I decelerate, I look in the rearview to see steam/smoke rising from
> the rear. Ohh noo. Also, the clutch pedal gets soft and I hear a screeching
> sound(like a loose belt) coming from the rear. . . . The car is shifting OK, but
> something is definently wrong with the clutch, as it makes a horrendous
> sound everytime it is engaged

Then his light switch:
> I push them back on, except for the switch sticks and they between
> parking & headlights and they aren't lit. . . . .The switch is toast. It is
> definently stuck, I can't get it unstuck with out taking the dash apart and. . . . Fire Exinguisher!
> The manager comes out, give two quick bursts in the dash to put the fire
> out.