Fire Extinguishers (and why you need one)

[craigowl 0]

Shall we do a group buy of two on Saturday at Aldi ? !! ;-)

 

 

They only come round every few months. Check Aldi website for Thursdays and Sundays.

Lidl on Thursdays and Mondays.

[Butterfly 0]

But Lidl haven't had any for ages. We have looked to replace the one Kip used on his 8v last year for ages but there's been none (or other people have bought them before we get there :( )

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Bit worried about my fans now, any idea how they broke? Or it, is only one motor.

 

Just one motor. The second fan is driven by a 'fan' belt. See what I did there? :D

 

I've always offered my opinions on the VR6 fans being over-engineered. Normally I'm all for over-engineering but the fans are just overly complex, bulky and heavy. I would recommend a pair of 11" General Cab slimline fans instead and just run them off speed one (rad switch). With these, Speeds 2 and 3 will never be required.

 

It's all I used with a VRT and now the R32.

[Tempest 0]

Poundstretcher have some. That's where I got mine from just about a month ago, when doing the intake manifold refresh job on my 928, and scared to death about engine fires when starting the engine first time, because I had to take out and refit all the injectors.

 

Tempest

[captainredeye 0]

Had my dash off today and had to replace a few wires that had burnt and melted. First thoughts buy an extinguisher.

[Redfox 10]

And follow the thread on here to prevent the well known bulp-fires. Better to prevent.

 

Cheers,

Redfox.

[Stonejag 10]

I've always offered my opinions on the VR6 fans being over-engineered. Normally I'm all for over-engineering but the fans are just overly complex, bulky and heavy. I would recommend a pair of 11" General Cab slimline fans instead and just run them off speed one (rad switch). With these, Speeds 2 and 3 will never be required.

 

It's all I used with a VRT and now the R32.

Now he tells me :lol:

 

I've still no real idea what happened but I'd been repeatedly frustrated by my failure to get speeds 1/2 working so I guess I shouldn't have been quite so surprised!

 

Having replaced the yellow sender, blue sender, rad thermoswitch and fan controller, it had got to the point where bridging the solid red wire in the rad switch plug to the other two pins would give me speeds 1&2 and bridging the two pins on the yellow sense connector gave me speed 3, but only speed 3 came on while driving :-/ Not 100% convinced I have the right fan controller fitted, what's the right part number? They were quite sluggish on the lower speeds and arced noticeably when bridging the pins so could have just been duff fans all along?

 

I tend to be of the opinion that the OEM stuff is designed this way for a reason but if it still doesn't work right with new fans I'd be seriously tempted to roll my own fan controller and be dine with it. At least then I'd understand how it worked!

 

Stone

[VW_OwneR_85 1]

lol would fitting a small smoke alarm in the bay be going to far?

[dragon green 4]

lol would fitting a small smoke alarm in the bay be going to far?

 

You must be the only one on here who hasn't !!!

[floppyman 0]

You must be the only one on here who hasn't !!!

 

And a sprinkler system ;)

[Portent 0]

I had a very close one today when I could smell petrol in the car. I popped the bonnet to look and could see a small drip of petrol coming from what I assume are the fuel lines. I was only 2 mins from home so I slowly drive home (car was still cold). It wasn't dropping when I got home but I found a jubilee clip wasn't as tight as it could be. I tightened it up and will keep an eye on it but it was a stark reminder to carry am extinguisher. I will be getting one this week.

[dannyboy 0]

I had a very close one today when I could smell petrol in the car. I popped the bonnet to look and could see a small drip of petrol coming from what I assume are the fuel lines. I was only 2 mins from home so I slowly drive home (car was still cold). It wasn't dropping when I got home but I found a jubilee clip wasn't as tight as it could be. I tightened it up and will keep an eye on it but it was a stark reminder to carry am extinguisher. I will be getting one this week.

 

could be worse,you could have ended up like my old rado.

[Portent 0]

Fire extinguisher now in boot of car.

[Stonejag 10]

Good man. Now make sure you leave the boot lock in the 'unlocks with central locking' position otherwise when you try and get it in a hurry you'll lose ten seconds dashing back for the keys out of the ignition and fumbling with adrenaline-fingers to get it open...

 

My first trip out from the garage will be for two new tyres (bad tracking, boo!), then to the hardware shop for a new extinguisher and a 10mm ratchet spanner to keep in the driver's door pocket to undo the battery clamp with. I lost 30 seconds rummaging in my tool bag for something to disconnect the battery with and for all of that time it was getting worse! Lessons learned all round but if I can stop someone making the same mistakes and save a Corrado or two it'll all be worth it :)

 

Stone

[OllieVR6 0]

Good man. Now make sure you leave the boot lock in the 'unlocks with central locking' position otherwise when you try and get it in a hurry you'll lose ten seconds dashing back for the keys out of the ignition and fumbling with adrenaline-fingers to get it open...

 

My first trip out from the garage will be for two new tyres (bad tracking, boo!), then to the hardware shop for a new extinguisher and a 10mm ratchet spanner to keep in the driver's door pocket to undo the battery clamp with. I lost 30 seconds rummaging in my tool bag for something to disconnect the battery with and for all of that time it was getting worse! Lessons learned all round but if I can stop someone making the same mistakes and save a Corrado or two it'll all be worth it :)

 

Stone

 

Thanks Stone. My extinguisher arrived just now, I'll rummage for a spare 10mm spanner too. Might see if there is a 'clip' based alternative terminal I can purchase instead though.

 

Bit worried about your previous post as I'm currently replacing all the sensors to get cooling system sorted having had similar issues (speed 1 and 3 but no speed 2).

 

---------- Post added at 3:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 3:49 PM ----------

 

Something like this perhaps:

 

http://www.totalbatteries.co.uk/i-Quick-Release-Battery-Terminal-Clamps-Pair-I7919.html

[Redfox 10]

Here's my side of the story. A few times I smelled petrol inside the Corrado shortly upon starting it, especially in the cold.

I thought mglp, what is this?

So I ordered new fuel lines (the bits in the enginecompartment), and new clips. The clips that VW sell now, here at least, is a screw type that is prone to losening or otherwise failing. I spoke to a VW friend, who told me to immediately get the other type that you clamp once and for all.

The thing is, that from the outside absoloutely nothing was visible, but I could still sense petrol dripping sown on the manifold. There are fuel lines on both sides of my G60 engine, and I changed the lot.

Upon taking the old ones off, I could very clearly see that they were totally cracked all over on the inside, therefore leaking petrol.

I also looked into this lightswitch fire thing, and isolated it, along with the lamp in the glovebox and the boot plus the rooflamp.

I allways clean the enginecompartment of any residues, leaves, oil mist etc.

I have two fireextinguishers in the garage, one big and one small plus a fireblanket. Plus one in the car. At home I have three extinguishers at various places, incl. one under our bed. And I allways keep my keys in the smae place, or can smash a window in either room, to get out. Btw. I always turn off the computer, tv etc. at the wall plug, when not in use.

Years ago my brother was driving a vw buggy and in his club they had several accidents with members vw's burtsing into flames. One guy Thor, was cruising on the freeway, as his engine burst into flames (a 1303), He only just made it out of the car before it was totally in flames. He never got to his fire extinguisher.

I just felt to share this, as sometimes you only have one chance to walk away.

 

Cheers,

Redfox.

Edited December 7, 2012 by Redfox

[Elliot N 10]

When I first bought my Corrado 1.8 16v Turbo I was constantly paranoid about leaving it parked up with the turbo still hot, I don't know if there is any heat shielding that will help out but I am just so worried about it!

 

---------- Post added at 1:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 1:28 AM ----------

 

When I first bought my Corrado 1.8 16v Turbo I was constantly paranoid about leaving it parked up with the turbo still hot, I don't know if there is any heat shielding that will help out but I am just so worried about it!, someone I know lost their skyline due to a hot turbo :(

[Stonejag 10]

Thread resurrection!

 

Amazingly, given that it was all replaced with OEM parts at ruinous expense this time last year, they've just done exactly the same thing again :bad-words:

 

Luckily for me (again), since it was past midnight I was getting tired and was driving with the windows open to perk myself up a bit. Lucky, number one.

Also, I've been paying a bit more attention since my fans have been working of late and noticed when they didn't kick in but the coolant was at 110. Lucky, number two.

Also, on getting a hint of a plasticy-electricky burning smell, my first thought wasn't "what's on fire in Kilburn" but "oh :censored: my fans are on fire again". Lucky, number three! So, I pulled over pretty much straight away.

Also, since last year I've been keeping a 10mm spanner in the door pocket, just in case; so on popping the bonnet and seeing the fan housing glowing cherry-red and emitting gouts of acrid grey smoke, it was dead easy to disconnect the battery and let it cool down...

 

So, some of it is luck and some of it is cunning preparation :D Don't feel quite so paranoid, now!

 

Anyway, I hung about for fifteen minutes just in case and once I had calmed down just disconnected the fan controller and carried on home without any trouble. The 50A fuse had blown on the fan controller but it was still burning so must have been thoroughly shorted inside - am I right in suspecting they have a permanent live feed and three 'go at this speed' signals? The driven fan was locked solid and the fanbelt appears to have melted (second fan spinning freely) so it must have been pretty toasty in there.

 

Just one motor. The second fan is driven by a 'fan' belt. See what I did there? :D

 

I've always offered my opinions on the VR6 fans being over-engineered. Normally I'm all for over-engineering but the fans are just overly complex, bulky and heavy. I would recommend a pair of 11" General Cab slimline fans instead and just run them off speed one (rad switch). With these, Speeds 2 and 3 will never be required.

 

It's all I used with a VRT and now the R32.

You know what? This man speaks sense. Any more details of this approach - how did you do it? Attaching a big relay to a convenient bracket and running live from the battery to the sender, through the coil and back to the battery is the easy bit, did you have to make up your own fan bracket or can you bolt into the stock one? I'm annoyed as it's a front-end-off job either way around so the labour will be expensive...

 

I'm really not confident that the fans have ever been wired correctly - they didn't work at all until I put it on a to-do list with some other garage jobs and it came back working on speed 3 only - so now I think the best plan is to just rip out all the existing wiring and do it Kevin's way. I'll have a stern phone call with the garage who did the work last year in the morning and see if they'll chip in, otherwise I'll small-claims them...

 

So, yes, keep a 10mm spanner handy along with the extinguisher! :thumbleft:

 

Stone

[VAG-hag 0]

thats some crazy bad/ good luck Stone!

[fla 9]

I have just wired two 11" spal fans (some years ago mind you) and fitted them to the existing shroud. These are connected via spades to the large black female connector that plugged into the original fan.

I have aircon so the airflow is somewhat restricted to the rad, so with this setup, there is no speed one two or three - they always run at full speed! I've also wired a bridge into speed two just in case the wiring at speed 1 fails.

Perhaps not ideal as its a bit noisy if you have the windows down, but helps keeps temps very much under control. That said, it seems a good idea to look into temp control via the rad sensor, as Bacon suggests.

[Stonejag 10]

How'd you mount them into the shroud, just drilling extra holes? Bit wary of the labour involved to do things while the car's apart so it'd be good if I could get some fans fitted to a spare and ready to bolt up when the front's off and the radiator hinged away.

 

Unplugging the fan harness it seems only to go to the fans, fan controller and a small branch off towards the back-right of the engine bay (I assume to the thermostat sender for speed 3) so it looks a lot like I can just remove the lot and wire something similar. I make a lot of wiring harnesses in the day job so that bit's no bother, I can get rid of the fan controller's stupid bracket as well. Would probably work fine to connect the fans direct to the battery (through the relay, and a fuse) as well, then it'll overrun even with the ignition off, as long as the temp sender's closed.

 

Any horror stories or fan manufacturers to avoid? Other than whoever made these last two, obviously :lol:

 

Stone

[Dan_Storm 0]

I had a similar experience as you Stonejag. A couple of months ago I noticed the water temp was very high, I pulled over to find smoke coming from the fan.

Luckily I keep a 10mm spanner in the door pocket too :) . I disconnected the battery and let it cool. I moved the fan by hand and after an initial resistance it free'd up. The fan came back on when the battery was connected.

 

The day before I was working on getting my SWG scuttle panel to fit better, I'm not sure, but I suspect I left some loose mastic on the slam panel which dropped down and wedged between the fan and the shroud and stopped the fan turning.

 

A few days after that my crack-pipe and oil cooler hoses went! So I think the heat and pressure killed them off. I swapped out the fan when I did the crack-pipe and hoses...hope I don't have a repeat like you.

[Stonejag 10]

Wow, I'm glad you take precautions too! (although also perversely glad it's not just me having all these issues...)

 

My fan freed off when I rotated it a little too, but it was locked solid immediately post-mortem so I suspect some of the internals had melted together. When it's out of the car I'll take it all apart for some pictures / analysis...might see if I can get the materials lab at work to take me some x-rays as they'd probably be interesting!

 

To be honest I don't really know why I bothered replacing them with OEM the first time around, it's not as if they've ever worked properly for me anyway. Especially looking at the specs of aftermarket fans you can achieve higher airflow at drastically reduced current now we've had 20 years of advances in motor technology so there doesn't seem much point in bothering with the originals any more, especially given how rare and expensive they're getting.

 

Probably going to invest in one of these though:

(link)

 

I'd rather have the quick-disconnect attached to the battery wiring all the time as the mad scramble for the 10mm spanner isn't fun!

 

Stone

[SamG40 0]

I've just bought a couple of water mist extinguishers. Dont leave all the corrosive powder residue but the bottle is a little large. Good video demoing them on this site. http://www.safelincs.co.uk/e-series-water-mist-fire-extinguishers/

[seanl82 23]

There are pros and cons to them all tbh.

 

Water will separate in an oil based fire so will be no good for that,

Foam as well as water will fry electrical components,

Dry powder has no cooling properties and will just blanket everything and make a mess,

And Co2 isn't very good for oil based fires.

 

Personally I'm going for foam as it offers the best level of protection for all fires, and its a risk worth taking to replace a bit of wiring or components in the event it damages anything.