Yikes... caught my car on fire today

[Nick]

While reinstalling my subs, I was tightening the bolt onto the positive terminal of the battery. The wrench touched some sheet metal and sparked bigtime. I immediately dropped the wrench, except it fell bridging the gap between the positive terminal and the sheet metal. The wrench instantly welded itself to the sheetmetal and turned bright red, lighting the plastic surrounding the battery and the battery cover on fire. Luckily I was able to grab a fire extinguisher and put it out quickly, since the wrench had melted through by then.

Totally my fault, but I'm glad so little was damaged. There really was nothing I could do to stop it once the wrench landed on the sheetmetal. I should have disconnected the battery's negative terminal, but when I first did that before attaching the positive, the alarm went off, so I reconnected it.

Oh well, I'm out for towing, new battery, probably some mounts or something, but all in all I am lucky as hell. Those battery cables are damn close to the fuel tank When I came back out with the fire extinguisher, I half expected the rear end of the car to be engulfed with flames.

Lesson learned!

[Suneal]

Wow! Glad that your ok

[Polo M3]

Youre lucky the battery didnt heat up and blow up.. Glad to see everything worked out fine...

In my older car i was wrenchnig down the positive end, samething as you and touched the sheet metal and the wrench just welded itself to the metal... I punched it as hard as i could and it came loose, no real damage done.

[Bretts02]

good that your ok, but you and everyone else should make sure that the negative comes off first, and goes on last in ALL situations. Except when jumping a car. The positives should be connected first when jumping a car.

[LordGop]

lucky you had a fire extinguisher near by. You know had bad that would be, to have to watch your car burn up in your drive way. . Glad to hear you and the car are ok

[illegalprelude]

jeee ur lucky u got urself a fire extinguisher. we dont have one anywhere.

[Nick]

I was at work, West Marine. We have a very well stocked safety section right by the front door I was lucky!

I wasn't going to touch the glowing red wrench with my hands, I tried to pop it off with an insulated screwdriver but it was already welded solidly to the metal.

The reason I didnt disconnect the negative was because of what I said above, the alarm went off, and it resets all the computer shit. Although that is all null and void if the car burns up

[TrojanVR6]

no pictures? wtf nick, that is a disapointment.

[Magnus]

ouch, Be careful! It's not good when the tools weigh more than the user.

[NotoriousM3]

wow your lucky the battery didn't blow up but i am glad to hear no major damage good luck with the system