The carb in my '56 Fairlane caught fire today. I was trying to restart it after it sat about 15 minutes. It didn't start after several attempts but didn't notice a backfire either. I started seeing some smoke weeping through the gaps in the hood. I opened it to see flames licking around the bottom of the air cleaner. I quickly put out the fire with an extinguisher. The next step will be to figure out why it caught fire.

It was hard to start earlier today and took a while before it would idle right. It also didn't want to start up to easily after I shut it down for a moment before I took this ill fated trip. It ran fine on the trip.

Before the fire, I was figuring the problems were because it sat for about a month since I last drove it.

I've heard these things can catch fire and have checked it for obvious leaks before driving every time.

The car is all stock and has less than 31K original miles. I'm sure the carb has been rebuilt somewhere along the way but I'm not sure when.

~DJ~ AKA "Bleach"
1956 Ford Fairlane Town Sedan 30K original miles