Last night I was working on a 87 Moto 4. It hasn't ran in over 2 years. I shot a little carb cleaner on the air filter and spun it over. I opened the throttle to try and pull some of the gas/carb cleaner into the engine. It backfired and lit the mixture, burning all the way back to the filter. Of course the wet filter started burning and so did the spilled gas around the airbox and on the engine. I've never opened my shop door so quickly! I threw water on it to finally put it out. Unfortunately, this isn't the first thing I have caught on fire. Prior instances:

Lawnmower1-while refilling some gas ran down on the starter selinoid. Hit the key and it lit.
Lawnmower2-Too much oil leaking onto the exhaust
ATC200S-Hole in steel gas tank leaking onto the exhaust
CL350 and a CB450-backfired and caught foam airfilter that was soaked with gas
Tractor-clutch got hot and caught the grease around it on fire
Ford pinto-In an attempt to gravity feed the carb from a remote bottle, we dripped some gas on the plug wires. They were so old and worn out that as soon as we hit the key, they started crossfiring and lit the gas.

So, I am sure I am not alone here, so lets here what you have done. It doesn't have to be catching something on fire but a story such as this.

 

i have a old go cart, and was fixing it up to sell it. i cleaned everything up and painted the engine. well i was ansxiuos to start it up, and as soon as i did the think lit up like a christmas tree. i had flames everywhere. aperently i had a hole in the spark plug wire, and a little bare spot was covered in wet paint. somehow when i went to pull start it a spark ignited it. i'm not sure how, but that was the only possible explination.

in the end all worked out, but i never sold it cuz its to nice looken. i just leave it set there cuz i can't beleive how nice i restored it.

mini

 

always tighten fuel fittings while working with nos...poooooof


braaaap

 

lol

mini

 

After pulling a dent, I was welding the slide hammer holes closed in my son's RX-7. The dent was just below and behind the fuel filler door in the RR corner. The undercoating/insulation caught fire between the inner and outer fender panel. The car was inside the garage at the time. I was torn between trying to get the fire out or trying to get the car out of the garage! I couldn't get directly to the fire so I was blowing air (by mouth) and misting water through a couple of remaining 1/8" slide hammer holes, no luck. I finally got the fire out by turning off the MIG welder, holding the tip against one of the slide hammer holes, and squeezing the trigger to let the CO2/Argon gas flow. The fire went out immediately. I thought for sure that the car, the garage, the house, and me were going to go BOOM:-)

A buddy was playing with the carb on his 78 Corvette when it backfired (air cleaner off). Unfortunately, the float was acting up and the intake manifold was full of gas. That car burned to the ground faster than you could believe. If you've never seen it, fiberglass burns really hot and really fast! The car was a complete loss, nothing left but frame and engine in less than 10 minutes.

 

I caught on fire in auto tech at school, spilled some gas on my pants and was standing close to a exhast and it must have been pretty hot

 

At FSW 2 saturday morning I was trying to keep the campfire lit. Ofcorse I was using gas!!!LOL

Well, I had a 1 gallon gas can, and I was sitting down with the can at arms length keeping it going(we had no more kindling), so I was dabbing alittle here and there. Before I new it BOOM!! the fire followed the gas up stream and blew the can right out of my hands! well, I was fine except for some numb fingers, but 14mins favorite chair was not so lucky.LOL!! It went up in flames!!!


Sorry mark.





Biggerisbetter.

 

Now, this is my kinda topic.


1. 1991 Snapper Rear Engine Mower. Spontaneously combusted while cutting the neighbor's grass.
2. Echo Leaf Blower (burned it because it frustrated me)
3. 1986 Nissan 300ZX.....not my fault.....recalled faulty fuel system notice came a week too late.
4. 75mhz Pentium Laptop....my stove quit and I didnt want cold supper.
5. Kennmore Microwave oven. fire due to the aluminum in PopTart(tm) packages. do not put more than 4 in at a time. One hella light show!!
6. 1994 Buick LeSabre...happened at work...cleaning throttle body and life took a u-turn. No damage to car cept hood liner. (whew)
7. Rockford Fosgate power 1000 amplifier......still dont know what caused that one. elec fires stink!

I think that's enough..yall are gonna think I have some fire fettish or something.

 

When we were younger my 2 best friends and my little sister accidently burned down a few.............hundred acres. We were about 12 years old.


BIGGERisBETTER- i THINK THAT IT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE TO BURN A TEXAS FLAG CHAIR. WITH YOU LIVING IN OKLAHOMA MAKES US WONDER IF IT WAS REALLY A ACCIDENT. LOL

 

I'll only list one of my fire instances.
94' Ford Explorer, a RV, and about 1,000 acres of national forest. Yes it was all at once.
We were going on a camping trip and needed AC power in the Explorer so we wired up a BIG inverter. We used 0 gauge wire to the inverter with no fuse because we were limited on time. Sometime during the next day's ride, in the forest, the wire shorted out and iit just wnet from there. The fire got our buddies RV 100% loss, the Explorer 100% loss, and a bunch of the woods around. The engine from the Explorer was just a solid puddle of aluminum under where the truck sat while it burned. We got back from our ride just as the forest service was putting it out.