For those interested in old cars.

[alastairq]

I am willing to bet, seeing as the reference is to old VW vans...that the owners or drivers haven't spent much time looking at the entire fuel supply system on these vehicles. [If it works, leave it alone-syndrome?]

Folk run around in them as if they were 'new' vans...forgetting they will be 50 years old or more.

 

A shiny gucci paint job and lowered suspension doesn't necessarily mean much attention has been paid to the essential mechanics of the vehicle, which, being an aircooled VW, is very different from the average Hyundai?

 

Underneath the shiny new paint and Gucci wheels there may lie a whole host of horrors which will go un-noticed in the 'excitement?'

 

I ran a type 2 VW bus for quite a few years, back in the 1990's. [& late 1980's]  It was a 'crossover' model, having the early type 2 bodywork [low front indicators, small oval rear lights, big ears]...but with the later suspension and brakes. Best of both worlds really, as I always found the high indicator front ends, and big rear lights, to be ugly.

I was lucky, the previous owner had fitted all new exhaust heat exchangers, and new trunking to the front..so the demisters actually worked [and where, on revving the engine, I found a previous owner also had suffered a busted windscreen. Thousands of tiny glass cubes shot out of the demister vents! Took me a long time to get it all out...

 

Anyway, the suspension was at stock height, so the van fair floated along. Lowering or slamming the suspension on a bus made the ride really quite harsh.

 

As was the usual case with air-cooled VW's [largely a knock-on effect of VW trying to meet the US emissions rules with what they'd got?], number 3 exhaust valve dropped its head..luckily when ticking over on my driveway.  The valve head took out a chunk of piston, which lunched the barrel, and holed the crankcase.

It was a 1600 motor too.

Result was, rather than try to save the engine [no point if crankcase was holed]....I bought a new crate [pallet, really] engine off a VW specialist....and went up a few CCs  whilst I was at it, to 1800cc....[no point going bigger, as , at the time, bigger barrels needed bigger crankcase holes, and the barrels could also get a bit thin, ahen around the 2.2 litre mark, thus they could warp when under stress.....good for car park bragging rights, no good for serious road use. To go bigger than 2 litres one needed to get hold of a VW type 4  flat motor....these could go out to 2.5 litres or so, and were as good as a Porsche engine, and more useful by far.

Anyway, 1800 was the biggest without expensive machining or a few hundred extra quids [I think my mtor cost under 700 quid at the time?

I also opted for twin solex carbs...single chokes,rather than the usual fare of twin chokes...I had twin port heads already from the 1600....folk often plump for the bragging rights twin choke carbs...which are fine in the beetle saloon, or type 3 , but the bus is a lot heavier than either, so twin chokes would over-carburate the  engine , which has to slog more...so single chokes worked fine. Got them on an offer, the throttle linkage was a nightmare to get right, ended up mostly making my own up.

Could get a regular 22 mpgs, which was as good as the single [Pierburg?] VW carb!  The extra cc's made pulling and cruising  a lot easier [more torque] VW aircooled engines as standard didn't make much inthe way of BHP.

 

Could sit at 70-plus mph all day long [or until the tank ran dry?}

 

However, I did renew all the fuel lines, etc, so little or no risk of fires.  I even managed to find & buy a brand spankers, purpose made tent/awning for it.  Got it cheap, as no one ran type 2 VW vans much by then, it was stuck inthe storeroom of a caravan spot.

Went all over in it, good trippery vehicle, as it was less than a Granada in terms of ground space...Narrow streets were no problem...neither was overtaking!!

 

Flogged it eventually, for many times what I'd paid for it, bought sight unseen by a punter from down south, he drove it back home without issue...left me with a tesco carrier bag full of ten pound notes!!

 

Anyway, the topic was VW fires, and I reckon its down to owners not playing the game with a 50 year old vehicle...possibly because they don't know how to or realise???

[boxbrownie]

8 minutes ago, alastairq said:

and were as good as a Porsche engine, and more useful by far.

Well....two thirds as good 

 

Down here the place is covered with all ages of VW vans, and they cost a fortune, and you absolutely correct I am sure most of the owners buy them and expect to run them the same as they do their brand new company cars.

[PhilJ W]

1 hour ago, Captain Cuttle said:

It seems that VW campervans catch fire quite often usually in the engine compartment, not some i knew about till i googled it.

 

There was one last week up on Dartmoor which took a square kilometer of gorse with it which took tens hours to control. The van was totally destroyed.

 

Some owners now have a fire suppression  system fitted to combat this.

 

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

They were interviewing the owner last night on Look West, apparently his kids said there was a bit of smoke in the back and by the time they all got out there were flames issuing from the air intake vents for the engine compartment (that’s at the back for any of Mr Wolf’s morons here ) , he emptied a fire extinguisher and ran away.......the flames actually blew across the road to the gorse bushes and the rest is history, or cinders.

I wonder how clean the engine compartment was?

[MrWolf]

Other questions are: Had the fuel lines been replaced with that godawful braided clear plastic that goes hard with age and additives?

Oily muck everywhere? Bits of ducting / heat shields missing? Any interesting repairs to the wiring? Oily tags in the engine bay?

I too had a 1969 H registered early bay window van, back when people looked down on VW vans with not enough windows. It had all of those faults. But at least it didn't need much welding.

 

Gorse makes for fantastic kindling, as the VW owner doubtless found out!

[Captain Cuttle]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

 

I wonder how clean the engine compartment was?

Good question, would have thought this fellas pride and joy was pretty faultless but this happened none the less.

 

https://www.vdubxs.com/protecting-a-vintage-vw-camper-from-your-worst-nightmare-an-engine-fire/

[boxbrownie]

News today, timing couldn’t be better 

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/355170/campervan-rental-try-you-buy-website-launches?_mout=1&utm_campaign=autoexpress_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

[Enterprisingwestern]

10 hours ago, MrWolf said:

The Iso Grifo was one of those cars I always fancied as a child, I only got as far as owning the Corgi model. I don't recall ever seeing a real one. Were I to win the lottery,you can keep new Ferraris, Lamborghini's and Maseratis, an old Iso ticks both the exotica and the "What is it?" boxes.

Plus it's a lot less like waving your bank book under everyone's nose.

 

 

 

 

My wallet waver would be one of these;

 

 

Mike.

[boxbrownie]

8 minutes ago, Captain Cuttle said:

Good question, would have thought this fellas pride and joy was pretty faultless but this happened none the less.

 

https://www.vdubxs.com/protecting-a-vintage-vw-camper-from-your-worst-nightmare-an-engine-fire/

I am very surprised by the statement that an engine bay on a hot day only reaches about 30C.......I’d say that was very low TBH, when I used to install mini video cameras in engine bays they needed wrapping in heat protective foil usually and they operate up to 70C.....blimey CPUs in computers can get to 50-60C.

 

Anyway it was an interesting article.

[Captain Cuttle]

2 hours ago, boxbrownie said:

Well....two thirds as good 

 

Down here the place is covered with all ages of VW vans, and they cost a fortune, and you absolutely correct I am sure most of the owners buy them and expect to run them the same as they do their brand new company cars.

I would say almost every day now there is a campervan on fire in this area and probably everywhere else and not just VW ones. Some folk are just ignorant when it comes to doing maintenance work as long as it looks ok and is legal. Plus most of the larger jobbies have a grp or some form of plastic body, removable roof section etc with ageing wiring etc.

 

Did Vauxhall finally sort out the Zafira fire issues as they dont seem to pop up these days but i remember reading somewhere that other Vauxhalls can be prone to spotaneous combustion!

[boxbrownie]

1 minute ago, Captain Cuttle said:

I

 

Did Vauxhall finally sort out the Zafira fire issues as they dont seem to pop up these days but i remember reading somewhere that other Vauxhalls can be prone to spotaneous combustion!

I believe it was in the HVAC system in the passenger compartment, not sure exactly what component though.

[boxbrownie]

28 minutes ago, Captain Cuttle said:

Good question, would have thought this fellas pride and joy was pretty faultless but this happened none the less.

 

https://www.vdubxs.com/protecting-a-vintage-vw-camper-from-your-worst-nightmare-an-engine-fire/

It might have been squeaky clean and lovely looking but it only needs a carelessly unclipped cable or a loose/high resistance connection, not so often petrol leaks start the fires though.

[peanuts]

34 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

I believe it was in the HVAC system in the passenger compartment, not sure exactly what component though.

heard it was due to the pollen filter not being changed or cleaned on a regular basis leading to a build up of dead leaves and other detritus that would dry out and act as kindling 

[MrWolf]

2 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

My wallet waver would be one of these;

 

 

Mike.

 

The Facel Vega HK500 is on my list too! 

Other unaffordables are in no particular order:

 

Bristol 403

Alvis TC21

Larmborghini Miura

Buick Skylark, 1953

Maserati 3500GTI

BMW 507

Citroen ID19

Talbot Lago

Invicta Black Prince

Jaguar SS1 Airline coupé

Lotus XI

HRG 1500

 

The list goes on...

 

The list of cars that are affordable but I don't have the room and money for all of them is huge.

 

I think that I will stick to borrowing the Memsahib's Triumph Herald 1200. That's very near the top of my real world list, which is rather fortunate!

 

 

[PatB]

10 hours ago, Captain Cuttle said:

It seems that VW campervans catch fire quite often usually in the engine compartment, not some i knew about till i googled it.

 

There was one last week up on Dartmoor which took a square kilometer of gorse with it which took tens hours to control. The van was totally destroyed.

 

Some owners now have a fire suppression  system fitted to combat this.

They'd do better, and spend less money, properly maintaining their fuel system, which is the usual culprit for spontaneous combustion of air-cooled VWs. That and bodgy electrical mods.

 

There are two main risk areas for fuel fires in VWs. Firstly is the point where the metal fuel line passes through the tin shielding that separates the inside of the engine compartment from the outside world. The hole in the tin should have a rubber grommet to prevent the sharp edge from sawing through the fuel line. Replacing said grommet was part of a proper dealer service, but as such a thing hasn't existed for 50 years, most rotted and disappeared decades ago. Result is that the fuel line gets chewed through as it vibrates against the raw metal edge. Eventually it's holed and will dump the entire contents of the fuel tank (this point in the pipe is pretty much the lowest point in the fuel system) over no.3 exhaust header (which also happens to be the hottest one), resulting in lots of lovely petrol vapour looking for a spark. Whooof!

 

Second failure point happens when someone "helpfully" puts an inline filter in the fuel line from fuel pump to carb. The extra weight of the filter waggling about unsupported eventually pulls the nipple out of the carb. The engine continues to run on what's in the float chamber whilst the fuel pump delivers its full capacity spraying around the engine compartment as the disconnected pipe waves in the breeze. Petrol + hot engine + sparky, unsealed distributor generally lights things off very nicely.

 

And once the engine compartment is ablaze, if it gets really fierce, there's a good chance the magnesium alloy crankcase and gearbox housing will catch, and, at that point, there's not much to do but get the marshmallows out.

 

On my own daily driver Beetle I caught the first before it happened and was lucky with the second that the loose fuel didn't go up.

Edited June 4, 2021 by PatB

[alastairq]

9 hours ago, peanuts said:

heard it was due to the pollen filter not being changed or cleaned on a regular basis leading to a build up of dead leaves and other detritus that would dry out and act as kindling 

 Cheeze! What's a pollen filter when its at home?

 

[Especially mentioning ''pollen filter'' on this forum??]

 

[alastairq]

2 hours ago, PatB said:

On my own daily driver Beetle I caught the first before it happened and was lucky with the second that the loose fuel didn't go up.

  My first beetle, a 6 volt 1500, also set its back seat on fire!

It was a combination of, no cover on the battery [which was under the back seat base],  and a larger-than-life young lady, sat on top.

The seat springs shorted out the battery, consequently they got very red hot, quite quickly. As the bouncing was intermittent, she didn't notice the smoke for a while...

As the driver, I failed to notice the intermittent waving of instruments, either.

 

We spluttered to a halt one one of Scotland's apologies for an A road [single track].  The larger young lady probably never moved so fast getting out of the back seat before, or since.

 

As I recall,  the beetle bump started, and the battery seemed none the worse for wear after a while.

 

The cure was several folded newspapers [remember them?] on the battery top, and the young larger-lady sitting on the opposite side!

 

That beetle did a lot of work, for a 20 quid bargain garage find...Such a pity a previous owner had cured the rusted sills/heater trunking by welding the chassis [floorpan] to the sills...making separation of one from  t'uther ruddy awkward.

Just round the corner was a small market garden/veg seller, who had a split rear window parked up....& who tried to get me to buy it for a sum I didn't think a banger warranted. It would have been at least 25 years old at the time, so was definitely a banger in my eyes....

[Enterprisingwestern]

11 minutes ago, alastairq said:

  My first beetle, a 6 volt 1500, also set its back seat on fire!

It was a combination of, no cover on the battery [which was under the back seat base],  and a larger-than-life young lady, sat on top.

The seat springs shorted out the battery, consequently they got very red hot, quite quickly. As the bouncing was intermittent, she didn't notice the smoke for a while...

As the driver, I failed to notice the intermittent waving of instruments, either.

 

We spluttered to a halt one one of Scotland's apologies for an A road [single track].  The larger young lady probably never moved so fast getting out of the back seat before, or since.

 

As I recall,  the beetle bump started, and the battery seemed none the worse for wear after a while.

 

The cure was several folded newspapers [remember them?] on the battery top, and the young larger-lady sitting on the opposite side!

 

That beetle did a lot of work, for a 20 quid bargain garage find...Such a pity a previous owner had cured the rusted sills/heater trunking by welding the chassis [floorpan] to the sills...making separation of one from  t'uther ruddy awkward.

Just round the corner was a small market garden/veg seller, who had a split rear window parked up....& who tried to get me to buy it for a sum I didn't think a banger warranted. It would have been at least 25 years old at the time, so was definitely a banger in my eyes....

 

I had the same scenario in my 6v Beetle too, although caused not by a fat lady, but 2 fellow spotters sat on the back seat. We were just on our way back from a days spotting at York, and on the A19 in Bentley, just outside Doncaster I got the unmistakeable whiff of hot metal. A quick decamp ensued, but luckily nothing had actually caught fire, just a glow from the back seat framing which was actually brighter than the car's headlights! I walked up to one of the houses we had come to rest outside and asked for some water, topped up the battery, and away we went, the electrics being none the worse for their near death experience. Batteries were obviously made of sterner stuff back in the day as I never had to replace it and it soldiered on until the cars demise.

 

Mike.

[boxbrownie]

12 hours ago, peanuts said:

heard it was due to the pollen filter not being changed or cleaned on a regular basis leading to a build up of dead leaves and other detritus that would dry out and act as kindling 

But something must have started the actual fire, just a build up of detritus would just block the airflow and you’d get no heat from the HVAC, even the heat from engine cooling water couldn’t ignite that, but it would certainly be a nice kindling source if the fire started locally.

 

Also the pollen filter is before the actual heating radiator element so away from heat source.

 

edit : thinking about it, it wouldn’t surprise me if Vauxhall put that story about a bit to scare people into dealerships to get their pollen filters changed early on in the issue (it’s one of the most neglected service items) so the dealers could check the actual suspected source of the “thermal incidents” before they put out the official recall notice, and of course charge for a new pollen filter and maybe get out of a very expensive recall campaign......who me sceptical?  Nah just worked in the industry far too long 

Edited June 4, 2021 by boxbrownie

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, alastairq said:

 Cheeze! What's a pollen filter when its at home?

 

[Especially mentioning ''pollen filter'' on this forum??]

 

You have them in each nostril......thousands of the little ......

[MrWolf]

The only Beetle I have owned was a 1966 oval lamp model. I got it cheap because it had an out of fashion custom job. Lowered, Centre Line drag alloys, one piece power windows (which were the most useless, cheap rubbish) and a lot of minor alterations to remove door handles etc that were a PITA.

 

I brought it down my driveway a bit sharp and petrol started gushing out.

The original fuel line, tucked safely inside the "transmission tunnel" had obviously failed, so some genius had cable tied a plastic hose to the brake lines. Because of the extreme lowering job, it made contact with my unmade driveway and pulled the pipe off the tank.

To add insult to injury, by the time I had managed to get a jack under the car, most of the fuel had leaked out.

I had bought the car with the vague idea of returning it to original. Once I started looking at the custom modifications, I realised two things:

1. The modifications would have to go, if only for the sake of safety / reliability.

2. The perpetrator shouldn't be allowed to assemble an IKEA book case, let alone work on old cars / or be put against a wall and shot. 

 

Whichever was easier.

 

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, alastairq said:

  My first beetle, a 6 volt 1500, also set its back seat on fire!

It was a combination of, no cover on the battery [which was under the back seat base],  and a larger-than-life young lady, sat on top.

The seat springs shorted out the battery, consequently they got very red hot, quite quickly. As the bouncing was intermittent, she didn't notice the smoke for a while...

As the driver, I failed to notice the intermittent waving of instruments, either.

 

We spluttered to a halt one one of Scotland's apologies for an A road [single track].  The larger young lady probably never moved so fast getting out of the back seat before, or since.

 

As I recall,  the beetle bump started, and the battery seemed none the worse for wear after a while.

 

The cure was several folded newspapers [remember them?] on the battery top, and the young larger-lady sitting on the opposite side!

 

That beetle did a lot of work, for a 20 quid bargain garage find...Such a pity a previous owner had cured the rusted sills/heater trunking by welding the chassis [floorpan] to the sills...making separation of one from  t'uther ruddy awkward.

Just round the corner was a small market garden/veg seller, who had a split rear window parked up....& who tried to get me to buy it for a sum I didn't think a banger warranted. It would have been at least 25 years old at the time, so was definitely a banger in my eyes....

When I first started work on the local rag one of the reporters had an old beetle (even back then it was old!) and I remember going out in a job with him, it was in the nether regions around Brentwood along some very windy roads and he drove....er.... shall we say a bit erratically! Anyhoo we got to a series of 90’s and we almost went straight on into the bushes with him screaming “STOP PRESSING ON THE FLOOR”......apparently I was subconsciously “braking” as he approached each corner and in that beetle the conversion from left to right hand drive consisted of a rod from the drivers side accelerator pedal going across under the carpet to the passenger side where the original LHD system was, I was pressing hard and stopping the throttle coming off!

 

Bloody German engineering 

[Rugd1022]

Another old Maser - the 1959 5000GT, chassis #AM103.002 with coachwork by Touring of Milan, originally built for the Shah of Persia....

 

 

[MJI]

Vincent or Harley

 

Hmm NOT a tough choice!

[boxbrownie]

33 minutes ago, Rugd1022 said:

Another old Maser - the 1959 5000GT, chassis #AM103.002 with coachwork by Touring of Milan, originally built for the Shah of Persia....

 

 

I am not sure I like that, seems very messy at the back end, if you’ll pardon the expression.

[Dunsignalling]

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

But something must have started the actual fire, just a build up of detritus would just block the airflow and you’d get no heat from the HVAC, even the heat from engine cooling water couldn’t ignite that, but it would certainly be a nice kindling source if the fire started locally.

 

Also the pollen filter is before the actual heating radiator element so away from heat source.

 

edit : thinking about it, it wouldn’t surprise me if Vauxhall put that story about a bit to scare people into dealerships to get their pollen filters changed early on in the issue (it’s one of the most neglected service items) so the dealers could check the actual suspected source of the “thermal incidents” before they put out the official recall notice, and of course charge for a new pollen filter and maybe get out of a very expensive recall campaign......who me sceptical?  Nah just worked in the industry far too long 

A pal in the trade (since retired) was quite categorical that the Zafira issues were electrical and located in the heating/aircon area.

 

John