Originally Posted By DaveW
Is the coolant level OK?????
I once had a hose burst (on Christmas Eve) in the garage on my MGB and it filled the garage with steam, as the water hit the exhaust manifolds. Like you I thought it was on fire. So a possibility is a jet of water from a loose coolant hose squirting on the exhaust, or something like the washer bottle pipe coming off and dumping the contents on the exhaust. Check those levels.

could be the washer bottle emptying onto the exhaust manifold. The earlier cars. Had this. The manifold is so close the water boils quite quickly when there is no cooling air flow.

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