Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 21:44:08 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Another Burning Van!
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=response
my thoughts about 'changing fuel lines' .......
personally, I'd amend that to 'check your fuel lines' .........
which is what I do, on the either or so vanagons I'm restoring , and of
course I replace stuff that's tired or worn, or not of high quality.
but due to two factors ..........
quality of materials used, and workmanship .......sometimes replacing fuel
hoses INCREASES chances of a fuel-line induced fire .
I would however, ALWAYS bypass the plastic firewall fuel fitting thing
.......there's no purpose for that part at all.........and what happens,
very commonly .......is at the forward side of the firewall, where it's hard
to see.........a crimped fuel hose clamp there doesn't work well
enough......and it starts to leak there. The repair is to remove that part,
and join the fuel hose directly to the black plastic fuel line that's right
above the starter.
Definitely need to do that to all gasoline vanagons.
And ............the OTHER FIRE HAZZARD ...........and rather common, is
electrically caused fires.
At the minimum you should have two things.........
a fire extinquisher, and a FAST way to disconnect the battery or batteries.
Entire vanagons have burnt to a crisp from shorting out wires......
non-stock ones I might add. The stock wiring is pretty well fused protected,
though not infallible. It's the aftermarket and back yard hack work
that'll get ya there........messy sound system wiring .
Some peole do not realize that if you run a hot battery wire 6 feet, then
fuse it ...........the entire 6 foot run is unfused and can short and cause
a fire.
This happened to pretty nice 85 Vanagon I have now ........
guy was driving along, noticed smoke in the back.......pulled
over............the rear upholstery caught on fire .......no fire
extinquisher...........no way to get the battery disconencted quickly.....or
it didn't occur to him to do that ............he called 911, and waited
while his van burnt to nothing. - al for lack of .......
proper fusing on the stereo/booster amp wires under the back seat , no
extinquisher on board, and no way to disconnect the batterry quickly or
easily.
I say you should look all over your engine for ANY excuse ......any
suspecioin of a fluid smell or leak.......any odd smell.........or 'just
cause'. I have another van here.........nice 87 GL .......the fire wasn't
too bad. Most likely a fuel fire that started on the right side of the
engine .....
but here's the stupid part of this story .........the guy pulled into a car
wash ........and he noticed smoke coming out of the right upper rear vent
......
wisps of smoke.........and he didn't do anything about it !!
he didn't investigate, he didn't LOOK ( how many times have i asked peole
.........well, it's doing something ........did you LOOK at the engine ?????
it's AMAZING .......how often people will be aware of somethign not being
right ......and they don't even LOOK at the engine !!! )
So this guy didn't look, and got back in and drove off.
When the fire started in earnest, he used up his extinquisher immediately.
And be sure .......if you don't get the fire stopped in about the first
minute ...........once it gets going, no foot tall 20 oz. fire extinquisher
is going to be enough.
In 40 years of ful time car work, I have gotten at least 4 car fires out
............all within seconds........with minimal damage in each case.
You need to proactively inspect to prevent it,
and catch it while it's really just barely started...........and be prepared
to handle electrical fires , not just fuel ones.
Anything inspected on a regular basis is bound to do better than something
that's not inpsected.
The burnt 87 GL guy .......
that was all preventible. Now I've got a fine van ...........that turned
out to have a rebuilt 2.1 under the melted/burnt stuff.......and only 2.5
years on a rebuilt trans. And that fire was preventable too........
or at least stoppable while it was really small. Raw gasoline is a very
distinct smell, and the tiniest amount is easy to smell too.
scott
turbovans
----- Original Message -----
From: "Justin M. Mayrand" <jmayrand@METROCAST.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 11:20 AM
Subject: Re: Another Burning Van!
> Gees, this is not good. I'm so paranoid about this I check mine before
> every trip. Stonyfield Farms (the yogurt people) had a Bus rebuilt to
> drive around to shows and such - it burned down on it's first voyage
> - the person that redid it did not check the fuel lines.
>
> On Jun 1, 2009, at 1:40 PM, Keith Ovregaard wrote:
>
>> Saw this pic on the wall of a rural market near Point Reyes, CA. Fuel
>> line leak? Anybody know who's van or how it happened? I asked the
>> folks at the market and they really didn't know anything. Another
>> reminder to CHANGE YOUR FUEL LINES if you haven't already.
>>
>> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/9955648@N05/3586291500/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Keith O.
>> 90 Westy Syncro "VikingWagen"
|