[Shotimes] Why it's good to have a fire extinguisher

[Hartberger, Jason M. AT2 (AW)]

	So yesterday I decide I'm gonna do some field daying on my car.
I get out the Nevr-dull, Mothers' (or meguiars? Never can remember) Back
to Black, and start polishing and cleaning the exterior and especially
the engine compartment. I decide while I'm doing that I'm gonna clean
out the 150 pounds of random crap in my trunk. While I'm doing that, I
find my fuel pressure tester, but I can't find the NPT to Schrader
adapter for the fuel rail so I toss it. Well, near the bottom of the
trunk I found that adapter so I get the tester back out, hook it all up,
and get a reading of 0 psi with the engine running. So I figure either
the adapter's frozen or the tester's broken since the engine's running
fine so I toss the tester. I forget to take the adapter off.

	Skip to this morning when I'm driving into work. Immediately
when I start the car the CEL lights up. I figure, "great, the rear O2
finally gave up the ghost". I don't worry about it, as the car still
drives fine. As I go on, though, I notice that there's a definite lack
of power down low. It almost feels like I'm in 2nd gear with an MTX (I
have an ATX) as far as the engine braking goes below 35. The car feels
like I have the AC on, but I don't. 

	Then, I start smelling fuel. I still hadn't made the connection
yet since I was behind a big old truck that I was pretty sure had bad
idle jets on his carb or something. But it didn't go away. I had the AC
on 'vent' at that time, so I turned it off and rolled the window down.
The fuel smell didn't go away, it got worse. I started getting a
headache. At the same time I noticed my fuel gage going down a lot
faster than it should be. I usually have 100 miles on the odo at 3/4 of
a tank, I have 70 (just filled up Saturday). When I hit 80 miles I'm at
5/8ths. Usually, I'm at ~125. Then, it finally clicks. The adapter
must've unfrozen and had to be spewing fuel all over the (hot) engine. 

	Insert panic mode. 

	Now I'm driving a car that might friggin' blow up at any time
and I can't pull over because a)I can't find a spot and b)it'd make me
late for work. So I finally get into a parking spot and pop the hood
open. Sure enough, fuel's dribbling out of the adapter, going everwhere.
At this point I'm really glad I left the engine running because as soon
as the fuel hit the exhaust manifolds it caught on fire and the only
thing keeping the fire from spreading was more fuel pouring on it. 

	I ran to my trunk where I had my trusty little fire
extinguisher, got it, and turned the car off, at which point the
remaining fuel exploded. I put the fire out quickly and that was that.
No damage that I could see (or smell, but all I could smell was fuel). I
took the adapter off, which was strangely cool to the touch (it stopped
spurting when the engine turned off), and started the engine back up. No
more CEL, no problems. Veeeeeeeery interesting. 

	Unfortunately, I have duty today so I won't be able to see if
there really was any damage but I'll let y'all know tomorrow.



    V/R

    AT2(AW)Jason Hartberger
    USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71
    AIMD/IM-3/SHOP 8
    CASS Tech/2M Tech