Dear no leaks here

That crimped fitting is the one identified by the factory as a recall item
the word is simple ...
change them or lose your van to fire
:(
yours

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 9:44 PM, Scott Daniel - Turbovans <
scottdaniel@turbovans.com> wrote:

> my thoughts about 'changing fuel lines' .......
> personally, I'd amend that to 'check your fuel lines' .........
> which is what I do, on the either  or so vanagons I'm restoring , and of
> course I replace stuff that's tired or worn, or not of high quality.
> but due to two factors ..........
> quality of materials used, and workmanship .......sometimes replacing fuel
> hoses INCREASES chances of a fuel-line induced fire .
>
> I would however, ALWAYS bypass the plastic firewall fuel fitting thing
> .......there's no purpose for that part at all.........and what happens,
> very commonly .......is at the forward side of the firewall, where it's
> hard
> to see.........a crimped fuel hose clamp there doesn't work well
> enough......and it starts to leak there. The repair is to remove that part,
> and join the fuel hose  directly to the black plastic fuel line that's
> right
> above the starter.
> Definitely need to do that to all gasoline vanagons.
>
> And ............the OTHER FIRE HAZZARD ...........and rather common, is
> electrically caused fires.
> At the minimum you should have two things.........
> a fire extinquisher, and a FAST way to disconnect the battery or batteries.
> Entire vanagons have burnt to a crisp from shorting out wires......
> non-stock ones I might add. The stock wiring is pretty well fused
> protected,
> though not infallible.   It's the aftermarket and back yard hack work
> that'll get ya there........messy sound system wiring .
> Some peole do not realize that if you run a hot battery wire 6 feet, then
> fuse it ...........the entire 6 foot run is unfused and can short and cause
> a fire.
> This happened to pretty nice 85 Vanagon I have now ........
> guy was driving along, noticed smoke in the back.......pulled
> over............the rear upholstery caught on fire .......no fire
> extinquisher...........no way to get the battery disconencted
> quickly.....or
> it didn't occur to him to do that ............he called 911, and waited
> while his van burnt to nothing. - al for lack of .......
> proper fusing on the stereo/booster amp wires under the back seat , no
> extinquisher on board, and no way to disconnect the batterry quickly or
> easily.
>
> I say you should look all over your engine for ANY excuse ......any
> suspecioin of a fluid smell or leak.......any odd smell.........or 'just
> cause'. I have another van here.........nice 87 GL .......the fire wasn't
> too bad. Most likely a fuel fire that started on the right side of the
> engine .....
> but here's the stupid part of this story .........the guy pulled into a car
> wash ........and he noticed smoke coming out of the right upper rear vent
> ......
> wisps of smoke.........and he didn't do anything about it !!
> he didn't investigate, he didn't LOOK  ( how many times have i asked peole
> .........well, it's doing something ........did you LOOK at the engine
> ?????
> it's AMAZING .......how often people will be aware of somethign not being
> right ......and they don't even LOOK at the engine !!! )
> So this guy didn't look, and got back in and drove off.
> When the fire started in earnest, he used up his extinquisher immediately.
> And  be sure .......if you don't get the fire stopped in about the first
> minute ...........once it gets going, no foot tall 20 oz. fire extinquisher
> is going to be enough.
> In 40 years of ful time car work, I have gotten at least 4 car fires out
> ............all within seconds........with minimal damage in each case.
> You need to proactively inspect to prevent it,
> and catch it while it's really just barely started...........and be
> prepared
> to handle electrical fires , not just fuel ones.
> Anything inspected on a regular basis is bound to do better than something
> that's not inpsected.
> The burnt 87 GL guy .......
> that was all preventible.  Now I've got a fine van ...........that turned
> out to have a rebuilt 2.1 under the melted/burnt stuff.......and only 2.5
> years on a rebuilt trans.   And that fire was preventable too........
> or at least stoppable while it was really small.  Raw gasoline is a very
> distinct smell, and the tiniest amount is easy to smell too.
> scott
> turbovans
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Justin M. Mayrand" <jmayrand@METROCAST.NET>
> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
> Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 11:20 AM
> Subject: Re: Another Burning Van!
>
>
>  Gees, this is not good. I'm so paranoid about this I check mine before
>> every trip. Stonyfield Farms (the yogurt people) had a Bus rebuilt to
>> drive around to shows and such - it burned down on it's first voyage
>> - the person that redid it did not check the fuel lines.
>>
>> On Jun 1, 2009, at 1:40 PM, Keith Ovregaard wrote:
>>
>>  Saw this pic on the wall of a rural market near Point Reyes, CA. Fuel
>>> line leak? Anybody know who's van or how it happened? I asked the
>>> folks at the market and they really didn't know anything. Another
>>> reminder to CHANGE YOUR FUEL LINES if you haven't already.
>>>
>>> <http://www.flickr.com/photos/9955648@N05/3586291500/>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Keith O.
>>> 90 Westy Syncro "VikingWagen"
>>>
>>

--
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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