Well my new Magnaflow can really make rubber burn....literally! Pulling a boat to the keys and a car pulls up motioning something so I pull over expecting a flat trailer tire but nope it's my spare in flames. Oh shiiiaaat! Whip the fire extinguisher out from the boat.....won't work! So I've got my buddy calling the fire dept. and I'm dropping the spare as fast as possible. The '07 has the tire drop kit in with the jack instead of under the hood like my '98 did so blew some time there. Anyway got the tire dropped and got it out from under the truck, it's flat, about 1/4 in flames, dripping rubber and the steel belts are hanging out. I was real happy the wheel and hanger weren't that hot yet as I was prepared for some hot potatoes but determined not to watch my truck burn. I mashed it out on the road and got it in the water in the ditch. Checked the underside and was fine with just a lot of smoke to wipe off. Anyway this was one of the dumbest things I've done as I had noticed that the fatter Magnaflow pipe was pretty close to the spare and kept putting off doing anything about it until I forgot. I guess the high egt from pulling did the trick. Thankfully I'm only out a spare which brings up another thing. Anyone have any suggestions to prevent this? I'm thinking about either doing away with a spare and carrying fix a flat or something, or just carrying the spare in the bed which would suck, or getting a smaller spare and wrapping the pipe with some sort of heat shield. Way back I wrapped a mustang header with some stuff they made that was heat resistant and couldn't burn. Anyone have a good suggestion? And yes I'm getting a fire extinguisher tomorrow. I sat there so mad at myself all night b/c it scared the crap out of me after I was able to think about it.

 

You sir, are a lucky dawg.

But lemme add to this...

On my '03 Escape, I put a Flowmaster SI/DO 40 Delta on it... and it has a plastic bumper. So anyhow, I thought nothing of it and I told the shop to cut to bumper so it would fit the duals tight. Well, I was towing my smaller trailer that was loaded up to a total of about 4,000 lbs. Mind you this isn't a truck-based suv... so it was 500 lbs over the recommended towing specs. So, I was getting a little hard on the gas and of course the harder you step on that pedal the more gas is being burnt, which in turn makes for a very hot exhaust system. Well, what happened? I partially melted my rear bumper!

It only melted about an inch of it above each exhaust tip. So what did I do? I got my air rotary cutter and carefully recut the bumper cutting off the melted pieces... the melted plastic pretty much gave me a gauge on how much to cut off. So I cut it and never had problem.

Luckily my F150 and Dakota have metal bumpers and I don't have to worry about that.

Now on my Dakota I got 2 FlowMaster 40's Delta SI/SO one on each bank of the engine. But the pipes are well away from the spare... and let me tell you something. I can get the ends of those pipes (tips) SO hot I can throw paper in them and it will quickly ignite the paper. It's cool though... hehe

 

You're very lucky you only lost your spare.
How much clearance did you have between your tailpipes and the spare?

 

Obviously not enough room......

 

Your lucky you didn't burn your truck, props to you for taking responsibility for the mistake and not jumping to blame the product like so many do. I would use a good quality header heat wrap (racing quality), or even try custom making a heat shield to fit in there to prevent this from repeating.

 

That's a great idea. It can't hurt. I might do that on my Dakota with the heat wrap where my spare is... I can seriously heat those pipes up.

Totally forgot about that stuff.

 

I guess I ll be keeping my stock muffler. You are lucky bud

 

So is this potentially a problem for anyone adding a Magnaflow exhaust? I'm planning to add the 16615 next month, but no way I'm gonna do that and risk turning my $30k truck into a bon fire.

 

Thanks for the tip on the header wrap. I think that's what I was using on my mustang way back. Yea this is in no way intended to call out Magnaflow rather to let my own stupidity be a reminder (actually worse than that it was laziness and procrastination) when I noticed the pipe was probably an inch or less from the spare. I drove it like that for about 1500 miles already and checked it a few times with the intention of getting to it. It never showed any signs but I hadn't towed yet. It could have been any pipe, maybe even the stock pipe if it somehow got moved out of place. Just make sure to check the spacing and don't be lazy like I was.

 

I would say no it isn't, if it was a problem then it would have been posted 100 times here already. This is the first I've heard of it happening. I believe BlackDawg just mounted it too close to the spare (in too much of a rush to get that Magnaflow rumble on his F1fiddy ). He meant to get back under there and adjust it, but things come up and it kept getting put off. I'll bet it's #1 on the to do list now though.

 

You're right on except I paid to have it mounted. Regardless I knew it was too close and it would have been much easier to have dropped the spare while nice and cool in my garage instead of in flames on the side of the road. The thing is I'm running 35's and really not sure if the stock spare would be of much use anyway? This is where I need some more opinions. Should I just forget the spare under the truck altogether considering the bigger tires?

 

I just got rid of my spare, wouldn't have done me much good if I blew a 37.

 

Everytime I see your truck in that photo it makes me wonder if your truck can walk on water.

 

it's no Papa Smurf but it does alright in the water

 

I would take it back to the installer of your exhaust and make them pay for the tire... Several magnaflow installs on this site, and this is the first time of hearing about a tire fire.