Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2010 22:08:36 -0800
Reply-To: Roger Whittaker <rogerwhitt1@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Roger Whittaker <rogerwhitt1@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Vanagon engine fire or mishap in Roanoke, Va
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTi=7TBQJZA99MUx4g1tT4dyYvQkzELh_aRa8i_N3@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
dear spark arrest-er
you say ... Inside a garage at night, out on
a dark side street, the Mojave Desert at midnight...dark e...
i say make sure you vent the vehicle outside of the dark garage so
your wife and kids dont have to pry your vanagon from your our cold
dead hands in the dark
my apologies to mr heston ... may he rest in piece ...
yours
On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 5:21 PM, Don Hanson <dhanson928@gmail.com> wrote:
> It's pretty easy to see shorting plug wires in dark. It doesn't have to
> be totally inky black darkness, either. Inside a garage at night, out on
> a dark side street, the Mojave Desert at midnight...dark enough. I was
> really amazed when I saw the wires on my old 928, just in a dark shop with
> the lights turned off it was easy to see...I needed the new wires...Of
> course, special Porsche wires at about $300/set...but they did need
> replacing and the car loved it.
>
> Having leaking fuel...that is just a Bad Idea...trying to decide how it
> will ignite the vehicle...who cares how....when you have fuel spewing out
> you are much more likely to have nasty pyrotechnics...Even if it never
> ignites...who can afford to spray gasoline around at $3.20 /gallon (today in
> Murdoc, Washington)?
> Don Hanson
>
> On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Scott Daniel - Turbovans <
> scottdaniel@turbovans.com> wrote:
>
>> finding real darkness to do that sometimes is an issue..
>> but that method can work.
>>
>> another method is to spray a fine mist of water on the running warmed up
>> engine at idle...on the plug wires ..
>> if that makes it stumble or mis..
>> bad plug wires.
>>
>> any plug wires that are say, 10 years old are automatically suspect.
>> And cheap ones are too ..
>> even new cheap ones.
>>
>> Scott
>> www.turbovans.com
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Mike" <mbucchino@CHARTER.NET>
>> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
>> Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 3:01 PM
>> Subject: Re: Vanagon engine fire or mishap in Roanoke, Va
>>
>>
>> Anyone can see 'spark-leaks' by looking at the engine bay while it's
>>> running
>>> at night/ in the dark.
>>>
>>> Mike B.
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Mike South
>>> Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 12:26 PM
>>> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>>> Subject: Re: Vanagon engine fire or mishap in Roanoke, Va
>>>
>>> On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 6:38 PM, David Beierl <dbeierl@attglobal.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> 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).
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I think other people have pointed this out, but I just wanted to put it
>>> together succinctly in a direct reply, for future people who might be
>>> reading this and not digesting the entire thread.
>>>
>>> The problem with this as a counter-argument to the idea that it was
>>> fuel-line related is that it assumes a fuel-line related fire must be
>>> ignited by fuel touching the exhaust pipe.
>>>
>>> Scott pointed out that anywhere that electricity is leaking would be
>>> enough
>>> to set off the resulting vapor. A fuel line break that sprays fuel
>>> anywhere
>>> on the engine would generate a cloud of vapor that only needs one spark to
>>> set it off, and it could be a spark that has been happening on a daily
>>> basis
>>> in your car but not causing enough performance degradation for you to
>>> notice.
>>>
>>> Your engine might have spark leaks right now, in other words, that you
>>> don't
>>> know about. So could anyone's. So I would think that paranoia-level
>>> attention to fuel lines is warranted in spite of the fact that you can
>>> spray
>>> gasoline on an exhaust pipe without ignition--in a spark-free environment.
>>>
>>> Right?
>>>
>>> mike
>>>
>>>
>>> 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
>>>>
>>>>
>
--
roger w
From Proverbs:
Under three things the earth trembles, under four it cannot bear up: a
servant who becomes king ...
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