Date:         Thu, 30 May 1996 12:27:48 GMT
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         debug@wku.campus.mci.net (Doug Skinner)
Subject:      Re: Balls O' Fire (or Smoke curls to the left)

On Sat, 25 May 1996 01:13:26 -0500, you wrote:

>to keep this thread burning, as it were, a Warning to all you gasoline
>vanagons with the water-cooled engines:
>
I have been off the list for a couple of weeks, but found this thread
interesting (to say the least!). Thought I would share my Vanagon fire
story with all of you.

I had owned my Vanagon less than a year (I am the 2nd owner) and one
day while driving home from work the critter started running rough and
lost power. I pulled it over to the side of the road and popped the
engine hatch and saw... FIRE! I didn't have a fire extinguisher handy
and to com[pound thing I was on a dirt road in the middle of a
National Park (my place of employment - Yeah, it's tough, but someone
has to work in those places) so I grabbed the next best thing I could
think of, my shirt. I got the fire out and found that it had been
caused by the PO putting a cheap set of ignition wires on the Van. It
seems that the coil wire had pulled partially away from the coil
itself (the van would still run) and this caused enough heat when the
coil sparked to finally set the wiring on fire.

Needless to say, I found that when I went to replace them, I wanted
only the best for replacement wires. Those OEM ignition wire sets are
expensive, but when compaired to the cost of my Van they look mighty
cheap.


------
Doug Skinner from Bowling Green, Kentucky
85 Vanagon GL
debug@wku.campus.mci.net