Okay, so on thursday night my uncles 97 caught on fire! he had it plugged in and at 3 am my aunt woke up and thought the house was on fire but the realized that the truck was on fire. They are thinking it must have been a short with the block heater, because there is no other reason why the truck should have caught on fire. long story short the truck is totaled and my uncle is out a truck. he kept really good care of the truck too. has any one ever seen or heard of this happening before?

 

I think there was a recall on the ignition switch for starting fires.

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Actually it was somthing in the cruise control system that was recalled for risk of fire.

 

Like said above, the recall for the cruise control was because they were known to start fires... That would be my guess...

 

Block heater is my guess... It happens. I hear of it at least 3-4 times a year.

 

I'll take the motor if you guys buy it back...

 

haha idk if we are going to buy it back but if they are im gonna get every part i can off the thing for my zf5 swap!

 

i dont even plug my truck in anymore unless its really cold because of this fire problem and when i do i always look outside and make sure it is not burning

 

My gf's jeep's fusebox caught fire a couple weeks ago, just a random thing. You never know what's gonna go wrong.

 

if you plug your truck in regularly it is a good idea to use a timer switch the plugs into the wall, that way you can set your heater to come on an hour or two before you wake up and start your truck. this minimizes the amount of time a circuit is hot and has a chance to fault. leaving a block heater on for ~8 hours just seems like a bad idea

 

Yeah he owns a log truck company and some of his guys will plug in there trucks on a Friday and not drive them till Monday morning without being on a timer! talk about an electricity bill.