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

[Zach Leahy]

Good save :)

Where's Kurt and Dave with their fire extiguishers when you need them? :)

I spilled dino oil on the front, hot manifold one time.  It lit up
fast and I proceeded to blow out the fire.  Man I didn't know my lungs
had that kind of capacity.  I had to sit down when it was all over
casue I was really dizzy from all the oxygen now in my bloodstream. 
Then I looked over and saw the fire extiguishe on the wall 15 feet
away.  Drat.

Z

On 8/15/05, Hartberger, Jason M.  AT2 (AW) <hartbejm@cvn71.navy.mil> wrote:
>        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
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