P38 on fire

[intheozone]

This was causing a bit of a traffic hiccup tonight just north of Perth. Any one know who's it is? I feel sorry for them :-(
RIP P38


63429

Looks like an electrical glitch.

[redandy3575]

Lesson 1: always have a fire extinguisher installed in a P38.

[Eevo]

at the land rover spares place in adelaide, they have something like 300 wrecks there and i noticed about half had an engine fire. i asked about it, and i was told they all were on gas.

[intheozone]

Scary,

So they would not recommend a gas conversion?

I was going to look into one, i guess not now.

:nazilock:

[benji]

Can't see why that would be. Lpg is pretty safe if installed correctly, but those figures speak for themselves.

Could be plenty of things I suppose, but an ill fitted starter cable springs to mind.

I wonder if a lot of intallers dont relocate the crank case breather on the intake...

[Hoges]

Another cause can be a misaligned hose to/from the coolant expansion tank IIRC. The hose wears through and causes hot coolant to ignite on the exhaust manifold...it is flammable! There was a TSB on realigning the hose and a recall at the time.

[TheTree]

at the land rover spares place in adelaide, they have something like 300 wrecks there and i noticed about half had an engine fire. i asked about it, and i was told they all were on gas.

Hi

I would imagine they use Gas mixers not Gas Injection. Mixers are known to cause backfires and I guess that could start a fire under the bonnet.

No problem with Gas injection, which is much better anyway :p

Steve

[bee utey]

The two most common causes of LPG fires are:

1. Oiled foam air filter catch fire after a backfire usually caused by poor tuning. Hint: oiled foam air filters aren't as good as the advertising blurb makes them out to be. Keep the vehicle in tune, too.

2. Running low on coolant, freezing up the converter and the repeatedly attempting restarting until something sparks under the bonnet, igniting the excess gas. Hint: Maintain your vehicle, fit a low coolant alarm, don't drive with cracked exhaust manifolds* or try to burn out your starter motor by winding it for over 5 minutes.

*Common on high mileage P38s

LPG injection doesn't usually suffer from either of these problems, too many safety features.

[lorkers]

Another cause can be a misaligned hose to/from the coolant expansion tank IIRC. The hose wears through and causes hot coolant to ignite on the exhaust manifold...it is flammable! There was a TSB on realigning the hose and a recall at the time.

REALLY? I kind of assumed the coolant was as flammable as water.

I'll take a lot more care if that is the case?!

[loanrangie]

The ethylene component of coolant may be flammable but not diluted coolant otherwise there would be thousands of vehicle fires every year.

[Hoges]

The coolant contacts the very hot metal surface of the exhaust manifold. It separates into water and glycol...the water evaporates and the glycol component catches fire. In some instances of leaks in P38s, the result was a fire in the engine compartment...hence the TSB and recall to re-route the coolant hose. :(

[Hoges]

Double post...sorry

[benji]

I wonder how flammable on a 50:50 mix though. Diesel is flammable too but you'd be hard pressed to ignite it on anything other than the exhaust manifolds.

So true bee utey, sadly those things come down to proper maintenance and inspection though.