Fire in engine.

[Dreadybird]

Hi there hoping to provoke some discussion /ideas about the cause of and prevention of fire in the engine. After spending a year on the complete restoration of our 1970 T2 she went up in smoke when driving a couple of miles across town. To say we are gutted is an understament. The police advised that this was the third campervan fire they have been called to in a month. Now am talking to people it seems to be a common problem. Any ideas on what could have caused it and hope we might prevent any more of our beloved earlybays going up in smoke?

 

[Graham L]

Usually caused by split/old fuel lines in the engine bay, its common if the lines are not changed on an annual basis as they perish.

The options are fit a Firetec extinguisher in the engine bay, see previous threads that has a temperature sensitive tube that melts when the temperature in the engine bay is too hot and extinguishes the fire from above, we usually do a bulk buy once a year and happy to organise another one if people want.

The other option in conjunction with above is a fuel solenoid that cuts the fuel supply off when the ignition is turned off so even if you do have a fire the fuel supply is shut off stopping more damage as the fuel is sucked through from the tank.

Hope this helps, if you do a search through the threads you will find Firetec and Fuel Solenoid threads