A good friend who is a long time mechanic, drag racer and hot rodder came within a whisker of losing his shop and possibly serious injury a couple of days ago. As with most accidents it was a combination of things that caused a near disaster. He had an electric fuel pump set up to fill his cars in his garage. The fuel guage in the car he was fueling worked fine (up to now) so he was sitting in the car watching the guage to know when to stop the pump. Well the guage failed and before he knew it there was fuel all over the side of the car and on the shop floor. As soon as he realized it he jumped out of the car and happened to hit a battery that was on a charger on the floor causing a spark. You all know what happened next. Everything goes up in flames. He was able to get the car and the fuel supply container out of the shop so he could try to save his shop first. As luck would have it his son had borrowed his fire extinguishers so the only thing he had was a garden hose but the water was turned off! After getting the water turned on he was able to get the fire in the shop out and then started on his car. After a few minutes the fire was out but the car suffered pretty severe damage inside and out. As luck would have it he had just finished this car and had hoped to make it his daily driver this summer. The good news is no one was hurt (except for his pride), his shop is still standing and the car can be fixed. This just proves you can't never be too careful.
Damn, Rich... Glad to hear this wasn't much worse!!! Shop fires scare me big time. In fact, I just upped the insurance coverage on my shop this week. .
Dang .... probably a good thing that the water was turned off. Straight water on a gasoline fire would only spread it !!!! Still though .... glad to hear that the shop and the car survived !!!!!!!!!!!!
Conventional wisdom says that but I put a gas fire out in my shop a few months ago with straight water. I think the amount of gas is the key.
That is the most awfull of feelings. Surrounded by fuel that is. Had a fuel gauge related fuel spill myself. Don't assume the tank is empty because the gauge is on E. Dropped the tank in my 56 (by myself and had a drop light plug in next to me) and there was still full in it when I let the last strap go. I was wet with fuel and the puddle on the ground was getting bigger and going for the droplight .
Sometimes our "great idea's" turn out to be not such a great idea. Glad to see that he didn't get hurt himself.
With 15 years as a firefighter, experience says that the amount of gasoline is a dang big key !! Dump a quart of gasoline onto a hard surface, such as concrete, and then light it and then immediately spray it with water and you will see how it will just spread !! Lots and lots of water will do it, but most of the gasoline will just burn itself out before the water puts it out. But if I were in that situation with no fire extinguisher, Imma gonna use dirt before I use pure water!!
In days gone by, when I was younger, more energetic and able, I and my family were into 4 wheeling and back woods camping way out some forgotten logging road. Had a '73 GMC short wb, 350sbc, 4wd, 4spd truck trans, 35" tires, etc. Sometimes gas was hard to find and that was one thirsty rig, so I had mounted up another one of the side tanks one the left side, plus a tank from one of the older Chevys that had the tank behind the seat that I mounted upright in the fwd end of the bed and made a 16ga. steel cover over it. The 3 tanks totalled 51 gallons.All this was plumbed together with a 3 way selector valve in the floor just in front of the seat, where I could just reach down and turn it to another tank. As the years went by, we sorta got outta going camping and I just used the rig as a truck. Had the truck parked inside my shop, and arrived there about 2am one night after a shift @ work, opened the walk in door and the odor of gas about knocked me down! Afraid to switch on lights because of possible spark from switch contacts, so I backed out, pulled my car around where the lights would shine thru windows on front door, went back and could see my truck was sitting square in the middle of a gas puddle! I carefully opened the roll up shop door, took the large 36" window fan I had boxed in and mounted on an old creeper and rolled it out in front of the shop, plugged an extension cord into a receptable and strung it outside before plugging in the fan. Let the fan blow in shop to disperse the gas and fumes to outside. Finally I got inside and saw that the fuel selector valve had been somehow been either been bumped or left off the detent(s) and gas had gravity flowed from the bed tank into one of the side tanks, overfilled it and run out onto the floor. Turned valve to detent and stopped the leak. Removed that bed tank the next weekend! I was very lucky I didn't blow up myself and my shop and all the stuff in it! Looking back, I should have somehow contacted the fire dept. and had them standing by, but no phone at the shop, I didn't have a cellphone back then and nobody drove by to stop and ask them to go get help. Another one of my 9 lives used up! Dave
Im glad all is fine but you have to explain how he hit a battery causing it to throw sparks on the floor.
Has to be said......He and US should know better than use an electric fuel pump t0 transfer fuel into a car in a building like he did.... Russian roulette as to the possibilities therein....We all do silly risky things= FOR SURE, BUT WE ALL KNOW THE CAPABILTY, of gasoline as an explosive and just how easy it can be ignited accidentally. I recall a lot of scenes in films where an actor pours gas on a car or building to burn them in the movie, then they light it and casually walk away....NOT. they are using fuel oil or some very slow igniting fuel for these stunts...I seriously think a lot of folks actually have that conception of gasoline's- speed of burn. A coffee cup of gas ,spilt and vaporized in the air =can easily blow the doors and windows off a building and knock you to the floor when it is set off,it is that volatile.......
A friend took a 53 Caddy cvt to a shop to be aligned as thee final step in a 2+ yr long top of the line correct restoration before delivery. A similar situation happened to that in this thread except the shop burned to the ground along with the Caddy (and several others) showing about a mile on the odometer. The problem was his extinguishers were inaccessible due to parts and cars stacked nearby. By the time they could get to them the fire was too involved and nothing to do but get out. They apparently just received a large number of parts and things were placed there without thought about what could happen. The extinguishers were just not noticed. They said the parts would be there for a couple hours. In less than an hour, no building, no parts, no cars. So this just serves as an example of what to think about when potential for disaster exists. Had they spent a few seconds properly storing the parts, this would have been avoided.
I tried to google a comparison of a gas explosion[vaporized] compared to a dynomite explosion,but could not find it right away, then I got worried Homeland Security would be knocking down my door if I did find it so I quit!
Rich: Glad to hear that no one was injured.Buildings(and vehicles)can be replaced;human beings NEVER! I am EXTREMELY afraid of fire.When I was 17 I was working in my friend's garage(under the house)building an engine and Dave was in the car welding a spring tension bolt into the crossmember(it was a stock car).Naturally the doors were welded shut on the car.I was working in an area where the furnace was on one side of me and the wall was on the other.Laying in back of the car just inside the open garage door was an old 5 gallon metal pickle container with the top cut off and half filled with diluted gasoline;our parts cleaning tank. A spark from the welding flew out and ignited the gasoline vapors with a tremendous flash and flames mushroomed out under the ceiling.Dave couldn't get out of the car and I couldn't get around the engine.The only thing that saved us was another friend was working on his car outside;saw what happened and rushed in and grabbed the flaming bucket and threw it out into the driveway which fortunately was gravel.It flared up again but quickly went down. We had no fire extinguishers save the small one in the race car which was useless.We managed to get the garden hose to put out the rafters in the garage and some other small stuff and then took Paul to the nearby (thankfully)hospital suffering from burns to his arms,hands,and face.Luckily they weren't too serious. Ever since then I have been totally paranoid about fires.I have at least a dozen fire extinguishers in my 24x36 garage including two 20lber's near the doors.I check them every 6 months and replace the smaller ones every 3 years.
Who the fuck in their right mind would borrow someone elses fire extingisher unless it's an emergency type situation to be used right then and there and that case you replace it immediantly. Stupid kid. I've got two in my little two car garage and two in my kitchen just in case one fails. I would never loan one out. Instead I would drive the person to the store myself to purchased their own.
That would have been my first question. Then again, who would loan out their shop extinguisher? Good call, Denise! I'm glad things didn't turn out worse.
Fire scares the crap out of me, almost burnt the shop down a year ago from grinding sparks on oily rags I hadn't thrown in the trash yet,, the fire was on some rags under the oxy-accet. torches. I managed to pick the whole thing up with the leather gloves I had on and threw them outside along with the melting tote they were sitting on...the flame were about 2 ft high..the door was closer than the extinguisher...
Denise, CORRECT!!! Family court. Jr. hand sands the body for a repaint after trip to woodshed. Improperly stowed parts with extinguishers unnaccessable? Meet second year law student court, write faaaat check. Work was throwing away literally hundreds of extinguisers. I think very few actually made it. I was in the Navy and every man was a fire fighter. I have them all over the garage. Check the batteries in your smoke alarms too.
Several years ago, my wife's cousin blew up his garage with spilled gas and a gas hot water heater.....literally blew the front door off of the garage and caught the rest on fire. He was a teenager...working on a motorcycle and managed to spill about a gallon of gas in a small two car garage. It was cold outside so he had the big door shut. He had just stepped into the house and shut the door behind him when it blew. He was unhurt, but it scared the holy hell out of him.
I'm happy that the damage didn't get any worse which easily could have! Here's a pic of a truck that I had built and sold, upon the new owner receiving it he brought it to a shop to have a couple things changed to his taste. Unfortunately it happened.... he never even got to drive the damn thing! 18 rods total gone.
Might be a good idea to get your buddy a saftey manual and make sure he reads it. Lucky he is still here. Don't ever lend out a fire extinguisher,don't charge a battery around a gas source and definitely don't use a electric fuel pump as a transfer pump especially in a building. Hope he gets his car back together. Hard lesson learned but at least hes still around to know to never do it again.
I can't imagine a situation where I would pumping gas from one thing into another and not be standing there watching the gas until I was done.
I worked in the automotive aftermarket fuel pump business for over 35 years so I've heard a lot of fuel pump related stories. You wouldn't believe some of the horror stories about the number of things you can burn down with an improperly installed electric pump.
Anyone using a electric fuel pump to transfer fuel is asking for trouble. This practice was outlawed at most race tracks years ago. The right way to do this is by pressurizing the barrel you are pumping the fuel out of with low pressure compressed air, (it doesnt take much)
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