Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 15:59:22 -0400
Reply-To: Derek Drew <drew@INTERPORT.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Derek Drew <drew@INTERPORT.NET>
Subject: Re: Storing gasoline-a don't
In-Reply-To: <199807271818.OAA08732@relay.apci.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I keep gas stored there all the time. For years now.
I see no problem with storing gas there so long as you take precautions.
What I do is 1) place a air dam shield over the gas can to keep warm air
away from the can itself, and 2) I used that stout little round gas take
by, I think, Stainless Steel something or other company--Stainless Steel
Brake Company??. Joel knows which one it is as I think he uses the same
can. Little red doughnut can with a hole in the middle, but very strong
looking--made of heavy metal.
The only time I had a problem was when I actually opened the gas can. It
sprayed all over my face, hair, and got my shirt and pants all wet. I
didn't like it.
At 02:18 PM 7/27/98 +0000, you wrote:
>A while back I caught some list chatter about where to store spare
>gasoline in and around the van. Here's a story about how NOT to do
>it.
>
>I needed a place to store a small (1 gallon) 2-cycle mix container
>for our generator during our recent trip. Someone (I can't remember
>who; doesn't matter anyway) suggested flipping the spare tire
>concave side up and putting the gas can in there.
>
>We started smelling gas very badly, pulled over, and grabbed the fire
>extinguisher. To make a long story short, while traversing
>Smuggler's Notch in VT, the coolant pipes in that area got warm
>enough so that the vapor pressure built up in the plastic fuel
>container and blew the rupture disk, spilling fuel all down the spare
>tire and below. I quickly dropped the spare and cleaned all the
>sprayed gas up. This could have been catastrophic since ignition
>sources abound (e.g. spark from coolant fan kicking on).
>
>So don't try this at home (or on the road), kids. The only good part
>is that the spare wheel is now very clean and lightly oiled. :-)
>
>-Karl
>
>'87 Vanagon GL Weekender "Beverley"; Trexlertown, PA
>http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/
>VW shop list: http://www.enter.net/~bloss/vw/vwshops
>
________________________________________________________
Derek Drew New York, NY & Washington, DC
drew@interport.net
'90 Syncro Westfalia...
...seen off-road at http://www.tiu.net/~des/vw/drew/index.html
Also seen at: http://www.pipeline.com/~tforhan/swrange.htm
http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/snow.html
http://www.pipeline.com/~tforhan/swmassn.htm
http://4wd.sofcom.com/VW/Campers/Campers.html
Note: most valuable Vanagon sites on the planet (for owners) are:
http://gerry.vanagon.com/cgi-bin/wa.exe?S1=vanagon
ftp://gerry.vanagon.com/pub/
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