Hi All,
Well we had a fun trip on monday.
Just a short jaunt up the road for lunch and back, about 200kms all up.
Mostly bitumn on the way there but follow the back roads back should be a
nice day out. That was the plan anyway.
About 5 minutes from
home partner says " trucks a little fumey today". So
I say "what do you mean fumey". " I can smell fumes". "What
petrol/exhaust/oil?". " Just petrol". I still can't smell anything but
I've got my window down and the floor vent closed. Normal operation for
this vehicle is that there are no vehicle smells in the cabin that could
originate from engine/drivetrain etc.
So immendiate stop to have a look. As I get out of the driver's door
theres smoke coming from the sides of the bonnet and the paint on the
bonnet is starting to blister. So get partner to pull the bonnet release
(it's on left side of vehicle) as I'm grabbing the extinguisher. Look
under front of bonnet can see flames arround air cleaner. Suirt
extinguisher through gap and then open bonnet further to still see flames
arround carby. Try more extinguisher.
Extinguisher runs out, fortunately someone else has stopped in a 4x4 by
this time (thanks Greg) and comes up with another extinguisher. Flames
were almost out by then any way but use it just to make sure.
So to the point of my post.
How big is your fire extinguisher? We used a 1.5kg and a 1kg
extinguisher to put out this small fuel/air cleaner/carby fire.
Yes I do know how to use an extinguisher have to keep current on them for
work requirements.
Have now decided that minimum should be 2.5kg with hose. As with the
bonnet only partly open without a hose you can not really get close enough
to the center area of the engine (V8 F100 Traytop) and if you do use the
only one you have and the fire should restart do you have anything else to
put it out with.
Lessons from this trip:
1. Get 2.5kg extinguisher and mount it on cargo barrier of tray as
well as
the 1.5kg in the cabin. Grab both if you need to put out a fire.
2. Passengers when you smell/hear/see anything unusual about the vehicle
say so in a precise way to the driver. They may have not noticed or the
smell etc may not be apparent to them.
3. After you
check the oil etc before your days driving start the engine
with the bonnet open and
check everything again.
Cost of this trip:
1. Bonnet and repaint
2. Carburettor
3. Distributor
4. Windscreen wiper motor (it's directly above the engine)
5. 1 ac hose
6. 1 radiator hose
7. 4 spark plug leads
8. 1 coil lead
9. coil
10. approx 600mm of wiring loom containing 6 wires.
11. Fuel line from pump to carby
12. Heater hoses
13. Tow truck
home
14. Aircleaner
15. 1 fuel filter
16. Clutch hydraulic line
..... lots of labour.
What caused it?
Don't know. Obviously there was some type of fuel leak. The only place
there was fuel on the engine was in the hollows of the inlet manifold on
the left hand side. The only place fuel could have leaked to there from
is the fuel line between the fuel filter and carby (about 50mm long) or
the carby itself.
Most annoying thing about this:
Carby, aircleaner, spark plug leads, coil lead and wiring loom are all
less than 2 months old and have done about 1000km.
The insurance company has said they will cover it but we still have to pay
the excess.
Hope to have it back on the road in a couple of weeks just depends on
parts suppliers. Bonnet is already on it's way.
It was still a nice day out though as after getting back
home got the
normal car out and went for lunch anyway. Just could not follow the back
roads
home. (it's only 110mm off the ground).
Anyway something for all of you to think about next time you are buying or
servicing your extinguisher(s).
Cheers
Ross & Belinda.