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Friend of mine has a '63 Cadillac with the fuel bowl similar to the 430? Tbirds. The 3 year old seal on the fuel bowl failed. On this particular Caddy the fuel bowl is in front on top of the motor directly across from the distributor. As soon as he smelled gas he stopped and turned off the car but it was too late.
He opened the hood to a fireball and quickly grabbed his fire extinguisher he keeps under the drivers seat. Pfffffffttttt - it only spit a tiny bit of extinguishing powder then a bunch of air before it gave out. Luckily he had a bag of sand blast sand in the garage and dumped it on the engine. That put the fire out but what a clean up job. He would have lost the car if he had been on the road.
He doesn't know for sure if the extinguisher showed full before he tried to knock out the fire but said it was only two or three years old. My company makes us check the fire extinguishers in our trucks monthly with a turn up and down several times to "loosen" the extinguishing powder that can become packed from the vibrating motions of the car/truck. This was from a training session given by our local fire dept. My buddy and I looked on the extinguisher web site and it doesn't mention shaking or turning the unit.
Relating this story to remind folks to always check and carry a fire extinguisher (and maybe keep a bag of sand blast sand in your garage!) I'm not sure the shaking of the extinguisher will help but sure don't think it could hurt. We believe his powder was packed at the bottom of his unit. Hopefully no one else will ever need this info.
The good news is it only burned some ignition, A/C, harness wires and melted the dist cap. We got it fixed this weekend and he is back in business (heat damaged the condensor too - looked good but caused weak spark)
Eric
registry 5347
He opened the hood to a fireball and quickly grabbed his fire extinguisher he keeps under the drivers seat. Pfffffffttttt - it only spit a tiny bit of extinguishing powder then a bunch of air before it gave out. Luckily he had a bag of sand blast sand in the garage and dumped it on the engine. That put the fire out but what a clean up job. He would have lost the car if he had been on the road.
He doesn't know for sure if the extinguisher showed full before he tried to knock out the fire but said it was only two or three years old. My company makes us check the fire extinguishers in our trucks monthly with a turn up and down several times to "loosen" the extinguishing powder that can become packed from the vibrating motions of the car/truck. This was from a training session given by our local fire dept. My buddy and I looked on the extinguisher web site and it doesn't mention shaking or turning the unit.
Relating this story to remind folks to always check and carry a fire extinguisher (and maybe keep a bag of sand blast sand in your garage!) I'm not sure the shaking of the extinguisher will help but sure don't think it could hurt. We believe his powder was packed at the bottom of his unit. Hopefully no one else will ever need this info.
The good news is it only burned some ignition, A/C, harness wires and melted the dist cap. We got it fixed this weekend and he is back in business (heat damaged the condensor too - looked good but caused weak spark)
Eric
registry 5347