I just returned from my trip to Florida with my travel trailer, on the way to Fl. I stopped at a rest area about 5 hours into the trip to eat lunch, while my family and I were heading back to the trailer to eat I noticed smoke pouring from the rear of the truck, to my suprise the spare tire was on fire, lucky I had an extienguisher handy to put out the blaze.
Has this happend to anyone else? I know my circumstance is not as common, towing a trailer, but I installed everything as instructed, checked for proper clearance around the truck body and frame and have towed several times before, though not as long of a trip.
I removed the spare for the rest of the trip, as it is now useless, once at the beach I made some minor adjsutments to the exhaust and re hung the spare under the bed, the trip back home resulted in no fire nor any evidence of heat damged to the tire again.

BTW my Magnaflow is PN 16612

 

Well that's scary!

The only thing I can think of is that Magnaflow didn't think about the tire/rim sizes for the F150. It looks like you got the 20" optional wheels. Maybe the few extra inches got in the way of the exhaust which, in the end, started the tire on fire?

 

id be contacting magnaflow...

 

magnaflow rep posts on this forum- put a post"attention magnaflow rep" and list your problem- he'll respond-phil

 

wow

 

Someone on this site had the same problem, also towing with the Magnaflow si/do and he was able to drop his spare tire just in time. I just took 2- 15 hr trips with the family two weeks ago with no problems, I have the si/so.

 

Good thing mine is the side exit then, that's kind of scary. My exhaust doesn't even come near my spare.

 

WelfareWagon,
boy that's scary what amount of clearance did you have between the spare tire and the exhaust? I have a 35" inch spare and a custom bent exhaust (since I have the 6.5" Supercrew I just had the local exhaust shop do the work) with a Maggie SIDO (18" long). I only have 2" clearance on one side and 1" on the other. I'm getting worried now ~ fortunately I haven't taken any long trips yet....
Thanks,
Doug

 

I have about 1.5-2 inches of clearance around the spare, just as MF says, I even tried adjusting it after the fire and cannot get any further away then what I already have.
BTW I have the 18 inch spare 275-65-18 I belive was the size.

FWIW I bought some exhaust pipe heat wrap and when that comes in tomarrow I am going to wrap the area near the tire.

 

Welfare,

I had the same thing happened to me except my fire extinguisher would not work so I had to drop the spare in a hurry. I posted on it in the 2004 and up forum a few weeks back. I was towing a boat and have the 16612 that exits where the stock pipe does. I have (had) the same size spare as you and have since done the exhaust wrap thing and NOT hung the spare back yet. I am still trying to find a cheap used spare. I have wrapped the exhaust with some ok stuff but am waiting to order some heat shield products inferno header wrap and the exhaust heat shield. If that seems to make the area next to the pipe cool enough I am going to re-hang the spare and tie some inferno shields to that side of the spare. The other thing I have been considering is going with the side exit in front of the rear tire but I really don't want to do that. Also I bought the best fire extinguisher I could find, forget that plastic crap. I have not been able to move the exhaust enough to make me comfortable so heat shields or exiting in front of the rears will have to be the answer. The other thing is I am trying to find a smaller spare like 29 or 30 inch diameter overall instead of the 32 inch that came with it. Shoot you know as I'm sitting here thinking maybe this is the time to do a true dual custom job exiting in front of both rears....what a pain but I really love the Magnaflow otherwise and don't see how any other 3 inch would fit better back there as with the short 5.5 bed and long leafs there is just not much room.

 

It sucks if you have a nice exhaust tip, but you could have the exhaust dumped after the muffler before the axle (state law permitting). Then it wouldn't be near the spare tire.

 

Not a bad idea. But how is this for idling as I do a lot of that on the job? Would fumes in the cab be an issue? I like the tip ok but it's not all that and no great loss as you can still see the pipe inside which looks crappy to me. Maybe the tip could still be used and come off the muffler then angled down at a 45 degree or so, even though it wouldn't be seen much. Would this make the system a lot louder? This also seems like it would be relatively cheap to do. Man a novice like me can learn new ideas almost every day on this forum.

Also I live in Florida and not sure what laws on this are here but what would be the problem with this in "daddy's" eyes?

 

hey built54 r xpipes legal. i want the spintech gts side exit with the dr. gas xpipe and spintech high flows. will my truck still be able to smog?
thanx

 

Just an update, I bought and installed some exhaust heat wrap around the tailpipe where it is close to the tire, this weekend is another trip with the travel trailer, I'll see how this helps.

 

Hope everything goes well on the trip.

I live next door in Winchester.

Tim