Date:         Sat, 4 Dec 2010 19:38:59 -0500
Reply-To:     David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:      Re: Vanagon engine fire or mishap in Roanoke, Va
Comments: To: Dvdclarksn@AOL.COM
In-Reply-To:  <5f31c.63a009b5.3a2c3082@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 07:02 PM 12/4/2010, David Clarkson wrote:
>  a vanagon westfalia that appeared to have had some sort of fire (probably
>fuel  line related)

Hi David -- I'm just curious what led you to the conclusion that it
was probably fuel-line related.

I'm not saying it wasn't, and it's certainly a very poor idea to have
gasoline spraying around the engine room.  But unless gasoline
behaves differently than it used to (and it might -- it's more of a
mixture of heavy and light components than when I was young) you can
spray it on a hot exhaust pipe without it catching fire* (whereas of
course a small spark will ignite gasoline vapor).  Oil, OTOH, dropped
on a hot exhaust will burn.  Under normal circumstances there aren't
any sparks available in the engine room, unless of course the
sparking inside the distributor or from the ECU and fuel pump relays
can do it.  I'm guessing that with proper distributor cap/box seals
it can't, but again I don't know for sure.

*I think this was the basis of one of the Car Talk puzzles twenty
years ago.  Not that I was young twenty years ago. <g>

Yours,
David