The Van Caught Fire

It seems that I went to back up the van this morning and suddenly, the dashboard display for the back-up camera started flickering, then went out. So I stepped on the brakes and while it was still in reverse, I worked on figuring out what happened to the back-up camera system, when smoke started billowing up from inside the van in the back. I threw it into park, turned off the key, ran around to the back of the van and opened up the rear doors. It turns out the smoke was coming from underneath the carpet on the right-hand side of the door sill plate. After pulling off the sill plate, I traced the burnt wiring down and outside to a pair of power wires that used to go to the backup beeper mounted up under the van.



Further investigation indicates that the wires had shorted out in a slow burn against the hole that was drilled in the body to connect to the backup beeper. After seeing how extensively burnt the wiring was, I decided I needed to drive the truck instead of the van to get to work. The strange thing was, when I went to close the right-hand door, I discovered the missing backup beeper sitting in the First Aid compartment in the right-hand door. It looks like the beeper was simply ripped out of its mounting place under the van and was then thrown into the FA compartment. Such a gentle surgical removal left the bare power wires hanging down against the sheetmetal of the body, so it was just a matter of time before they were going to short out and start a fire. And I was wondering why the backup beeper had stopped working after Mom's funeral...

So, now I have to pull up the carpet completely on the right side of the van and rip out and replace all of the burnt wiring from the rear sill plate all the way up to the driver's footwell to make the reverse lights, back up camera (and replacement back up beeper) work again. Just what I needed, more work on the van and it looks like the In-Laws are coming to town next week and they want to borrow the van...

This sucks!