Flaming Bonnie Update once again
 

Man, The car is done for now. At least im driving it again, but I still have to pin stripe the flames and clear coat them a time or two. Im sorry for not putting any new pics up, but it is snowing like crazy. We are supposed to get like 3 + inches. As soon as the weather breaks ill take the digital cam out and snap a few shots for everyone to see.

STOP TEASING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes! You are the man, someone had to flame a Bonneville... It was only time (and evolution).

BUT HES TEASING ME!!! this is punishable by.... by.... make him drive a ricer!

Re: Flaming Bonnie Update once again
 

Okay, show of hands, please: Everybody who read the Subject line above and thought, "Oh, no, another guy who never got the factory recall notice about the trans cooler line blowing apart..."

I thought so! :-)

-- Andy (who is not related to Jordan M...)

I thought that too. It happened to me in May, and I nearly lost the car. Big flames, but I got lucky and got it put out in time.

What recall about the trans cooler line blowing apart????...... :? :?

I don't have the actual factory campaign number in front of me, but it was actually back around 1996 that they had this recall. Basically there are a couple of swaged fittings where the flexible hoses connect to the metal collars of the transmission cooler connections up front. I think the story was that under hard acceleration, it was possible for excess line pressure to blow one of the hoses right out of its connector, which would send trans fluid spraying all over the exhaust manifold, and various Bad Things would happen shortly thereafter. You know: fire, and stuff like that.

The recall involved replacing the swaged connection with a couple of regular hose clamps. My car got the factory recall treatment, and I have one original swaged fitting (I guess that would be the low-pressure return side), one line with two hose clamps on it (one of which turned out to be stripped... sigh...), and a little white sticker on the rad support under the hood saying something like "GM campaign completed..."

Wait a minute, I'll just go downstairs and take another look... (Working from home today has its advantages... :-))

Okay, it says

GM
Campaign
95-C-68
Completed
Do Not Remove

...with the "95" and "68" written in with ballpoint and practically invisible now after 7 years.

I think someone else here asked their dealer about this recall and was told it was too long ago now, but (1) you might be luckier with your dealer, or (2) your car might have had this done already, long time ago...

I will now hit my Submit button and hope that everything I just wrote is not going to get duplicated six times when the system posts it here...

I wasn't aware of the recall myself, so I just bought new lines from the dealer. Took a couple hours to swap them both. Great piece of mind, but I'm still planning on fabricating some sort of deflector to prevent tranny fluid from hitting the exhaust if this ever does happen again.

I lost 8 quarts in about 3 milliseconds, and had flames shooting up off the front side exhaust about 2 feet when I opened the hood. I moved fast enough to prevent any heat or smoke damage. Even my plug wires were ok, but have since been replaced with Taylor's. If this happens to you, MOVE FAST. The dealer told me that at least 50% of the cars that saw this failure are no longer with us :(

I was looking today to see if my car had the recall for the transmission cooler lines completed. I opened the hood and right next to the radiator fill cap I saw four hose clamps. It looked like they were on two flexible pieces to and from the transmission cooler.

Does this sound like the right place for the recall work to be done? Just checking to make sure I don't end up with a fire.