LPG being phased out by major servos.

Now in all the time I have been playing with forklifts , hands on I have never had to repair a forklift from a gas fire.
I have had to repair plenty of forklifts with petrol fires..........in fact a great many.
LPG is harder to ignite..........it really takes a hot flame to get it going.
LPG has a narrow air fuel ratio to ignite compared to petrol.
In simple terms you can have gas leaking everywhere and a hot enough ignition source and it still will not go off and ignite........the mixture has to be just right.
If LPG vapour ignites it is a rapid burn with little time for the heat from the fuel to transfer into anything and really burn hard.
If the liquid LPG fuel ignites , that's when that 270 times expansion comes into play and it is a explosion and all bad stuff.
Liquid gas burning is rare as the fuel boils off quickly if released.
All the times I have seen punctured bottles( and that takes alot of doing)
The liquid fuel never ignited , even though sparks from the accident were present.............the real danger in most cases I have seen is cold burns to anyone near by.

I have lost count of the amount of times a year old pearish petrol fuel hose is in the engine bay has a split misting petrol around the engine and the alternator sets off a small explosion or if the leak is bad enough it just burns and the petrol burns slowly enough to transfer heat into wiring or plastic parts so they start burning too.

As for diesel I never really had to repair a burnt diesel forklift as in the smaller size forklifts I work on they are not common.
What I do know diesel is oily and leaves it mark behind where ever it has leaked.
If it should start to burn it is harder to extinguish with water as the water tends to spread it quickly and because diesel is a oil it tends to mix with dirt, or seep into components and plastics over time and the fire will tend to work into these components.
Diesel has the main advantage it has little chance of doing a quick bang and spreads at a slower rate.
It also tends to smoke alot as it comes to ignition point from a heat source ......enough so people tend to stop driving a vehicle and have a look at what's going on.
I have worked on enough road going trucks to know this and been around the traps in scrap yards, RFS and my own silly mistakes.
Each fuel has its own problems and advantages with fire.
Ron

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Originally Posted by 101 Ron

I have lost count of the amount of times a year old pearish petrol fuel hose is in the engine bay has a split misting petrol around the engine and the alternator sets off a small explosion or if the leak is bad enough it just burns and the petrol burns slowly enough to transfer heat into wiring or plastic parts so they start burning too.

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A lot of the old carbies have a pressed in brass fitting the fuel line clamps too. The alloy around them relaxes over the decades and you end up with a bit toasty underbonnet fire as the engine will keep running pumping raw fuel in the underbonnet area until the fuel bowl runs dry.

I usually pull them out (with my fingers) and fit a threaded, ribbed brass fitting that can't blow out.

seeya,
Shane L.

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Originally Posted by Eevo

i dont have exact figures but something like 60% of car fires are from LPG

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Don't think the 'figures' would support that.

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https://www.racv.com.au/wps/wcm/conn...g+from+crashes

fuel type The research did not find any significant trends for different fuel types to contribute to fire risk. While individual cases of vehicle fire have occasionally raised media interest in the relative safety merits of different fuels such as LPG, the research did not find any evidence to support that any individual fuel type represented an increased risk of vehicle fire.

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https://www.google.com.au/url'sa=t&r...hF0AvdKpohW1SA
In the US 41% of fires start from 'general' materials and 32% from fuels, of the fuels flammable liquid fuels account for 76% of vehicle fires, whereas gas fuels only account for 12%

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My experience certainly wouldn't suggest the majority are LPG fuelled.


Martyn

ok then, from my experience as a firefighter, out of the 50ish car/truck fires ive attended, only 10ish were actual fires and most of those were on LPG.

i know its a small sample size.

also have to remember how much LPG makes up the general car/truck population.

Was the LP burning EVO? Did it start on fuel and then light the LP? How were you able to tell the LP line fractured and lit up as the primary source? I think you might be right about it being too small a sample. Your observations are interesting and i take them on board. For my money LPG storage and delivery is over engineered from the servo to the engine...the quality of hoses, clamps, converters etc always looks more robust to me than petrol. Anyway it's all food for thought and i dont write off your experience with the fires.

Cheers

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Originally Posted by ozscott

Was the LP burning EVO? Did it start on fuel and then light the LP? How were you able to tell the LP line fractured and lit up as the primary source? I think you might be right about it being too small a sample. Your observations are interesting and i take them on board. For my money LPG storage and delivery is over engineered from the servo to the engine...the quality of hoses, clamps, converters etc always looks more robust to me than petrol. Anyway it's all food for thought and i dont write off your experience with the fires.

Cheers

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i dont do the investigation on what caused the fire so i cant answer.
the last one i remember he said he switched from petrol to lpg.
that particular one was not factory installed.

Back on topic, last night I filled up with gas at the local safeway petrol station. The operator warned me the new safeway fuel station being opened the other end of the town would NOT be having an LPG bowser ever. There has been a large shift away from lpg power cars to diesel.

And he is of course correct. Rather than buying a big **** tank on gas these days. Everyone goes for deisel as they drive better and have far better fuel economy and range.

seeya,
Shane L.

They don't drive better. Nothing in the D2 range in diesel drives like a V8 petrol well tuned. Likewise most ute diesels on the market now...they dont drive as well as a D2 V8. They are noisy and still require winding up and off idle torque doesnt exist until the hair dryer spools up. They have excellent mid rev torque and economy though.

Cheers