ALFAGTV6.COM

Soooo,with the Giulietta with Dwayne and a lull in work,I re comissioned a gtv 30l I had stored for years...Dropped the Silver Giuliettas 30l motor into it and fitted EFI...
A bugger up with the wiring-read rats eating ecu wiring-caused an open injector , in turn filling up a cylinder with fuel..
I turn the key to start and and an almighty explosion rips the lhs downpipe off the manifold !

I had flames about 2 meters high and seriously spreading rather rapidly..!

I would love to have taken pictures of the fire and all the mad scrambling for extinguishers but I was rather pre occupied !!!

This is the second time Ive had a fire on a gtv6 ..The first was in my workshop 16 years ago and we emptied 3 extinguishers before that one was out..
Luckily this one was done with one only...
The saving grace here was closing the bonnet quickly and attacking the fire from below...

A day spent replacing burnt wiring and fixing the exhaust and the old girl fired straight up again...

One GTV6 30L alive after 8 years in storage again..


Sorry,not 13...but 3...

two weeks ago a mate of mine was burned rather serious by his car being on fire . He bought himself an old Opel Ascona with a 2.2 injecion engine. the car didn't run so they towed it home. at home they adressed the not-running-issue. a fresh battery turned the engine over a few times but it soon stopped, the engine just would'nt turn over anymore. they pulled all the sparkplugs out to see if they were wet and in working order. my friend stepped back a pass or two and another friend started the car. the result was four beams of petrol, a spark and a huge fireball... my friend was on fire, luckily he was smart enough to roll on the floor where my other friends could cover him up with a blanket to put the fire out. he now has his right arm and head bandaged after being hospitalized for a week. he will be 99% ok fortunately, but he (and my other friends) has learned a good lesson...

fire is the most dangerous thing that can happen in your workshop, a fire-extinguisher should always be at hand ( they should also be tested each year or so), 13 extinguishers maybe a bit much for the average person..

Good to hear there's another GTV saved!

i feel your pain..both of you...yet still dont have an extinguisher ....ive set not 1 not 2 but 3 fires on "the project" so far.....first one i had split the primary fuel line at the tank(yeah the HUGE ONE) and gut a small catch pan under it...and pumped out the half tank of fuel into some cans..a friend stopped by for some stuff and i lost track of what i was doing...........2-3 hours later im back at the car..fuel tank now out and i start welding on the floor pans.....but had forgotten about the catch pan under the car(plastic i might add)..i had a rip roaring fire and with the welding helmet on didnt know about it till i smelled something "funny"hopped up to see flames all over the place and the shop now darkened with smoke...reached under and grabbed the melting catch pan and got it outside the shop just as my hands sank thru the plastic...grabbed a few 1 gal jugs of water i keep around and doused out most of the car in short order...the rest i grabbed the air compresser and blew out....then turned to the 2 foot burning puddle in the driveway..grabbed some rather large sheetmetal chunks and tossed em onto it smothering most of it and then dosed with water

thinking ive no more fuel...a few weeks later i manage to find that the fuel filter is still holding out along with a small feed line from the pump....my "new" floor pans are purple from that one

i keep water and sand around

I just went to the Coast guard approved fire fighting school. They said that 2000 pounds of sand is as good as a 15 pound dry chemical extinguisher.

Also, using water spreads liquid fuel fires.

zig

2000lbs DAMN!!! thats alot of sand.....ive never had bad luck with water....i keep 3-4 old antifreeze jugs full of water by the shop door

Water on a fuel fire is a definitive no no...It spreads the fire and can turn rather nasty...
Powder extinguishers are relitively cheap..invest in at least 2..

Its a major bitch to clean up afterwards though...damn..

I hope you cleaned things relatively quickly as the downside to the dry chem extinguishers is that the chemical is corrosive to electrical / electronic equipment.

zig

Wow. I am glad you are OK, and the fire was put out without any unrepairable damage. Good advice about having at least three extinguishers.

Greg

Fire is a major fear, we have about 20 cars in our garage and keep about 10 10Kg extiguishers around, both CO2 and chem. CO2 is definetly a good thing as it is totally clean, no corrosive power (imagine the size of the garage you have to clean with 20 cars...).

Barry just glad to see you managed to salvage a potentialy disastrous situation.

I recall seeing a bloke work on his Landy when his friend cranked the motor with him holding the fuel line pointing directly at the exhaust manifolds. Never did I see two guys dig for sand as fast as those two did,luckily bringing it under control before any major damage occured.

Hey F ! You wanted the interior out of this car...Driving it today Id say it one of the most comfy gtv`s Ive driven for a while...
As I said elsewhere,Im 6.2 and dont fit these cars that well..This one is tremendous.The interior has been done in leather and must say..comfy spacious seats.

Just to add..I pick up a low speed medium load stutter today.I know its the rotor and cap.So I dig out a new set from the cupboard and while fitting I notice the seal on the dizzy is shot..Oil all down the side of the engine..
Dizzy out,on with a new seal and re fit .

Now those of you who know,there are two lengths of clips on these dizzy`s..Short ones and longer jobs..This one had the short ones and were rather tight to clip over..I do the deed and start the engine..O my goodness ! One clip jumps off and the rotor disembowels the cap and wires..
What should have been a fairly quick fix ended up taking 2 hours..another dizzy ,the clip badly bent the magnetic reluctor ,another new cap,rotor AND friggin wires !!
So its all done and I go for a test drive..get back ,open the bonnet and I smell something quite odd...yup,the fan is standing dead still and a bad smell emanating from it !!


*sigh*

On the bright side,I fitted the wider std wheels I bought from Kevin...Love them !

See Garth*, happens to the best of them..
*sorry Grant, a typo.

Hey Baz, man can I relate to that. Just ask any panel beater who started welding up that little rusting pinhole. Next thing the floor gets cut out and two sill sections later its almost going to hang together unless it goes over a speed bump..

Bloody cars, one day you love'em the next day if they were made of paper, they'd wind up on a roll in the dunny..

What

MD wrote:Bloody cars, one day you love'em the next day if they were made of paper, they'd wind up on a roll in the dunny..

American translation....(i think lol)
one day you love em the next ya hate em...if they were made of paper youd wad them up and toss em in the trash


that panel beater comment..yeah i know how 1 pin hole spirals out of control in a hurry....my project is living prove..replace a little and you find yourself replaceing more

sh0rtlife wrote:

MD wrote:Bloody cars, one day you love'em the next day if they were made of paper, they'd wind up on a roll in the dunny..

American translation....(i think lol)
one day you love em the next ya hate em...if they were made of paper youd wad them up and toss em in the trash

Close - Try "if they were made of paper, you'd be using them as toilet paper"

Thankfully I've never had any fires on the car or in the garage, and hopefully I never do. The only time I've used the fire extinguisher in my car was to put out a small grass/tree fire on my way home from work. The silly woman whose house the tree was outside was too panicked to either (a) call the fire brigade or (b) supply us with buckets of water to put it out ("Do you have anything we could fill with water?" "No no, nothing, hurry!")

In hindsight of this, we don't actually have an extinguisher in the garage. Should get one. That is, excluding the old 2BC extinguisher that was meant to be recalled 15 years ago because it contains CFCs and is unfriendly to the environment

ROCK ON
R~R