OMG my TM is on FIRE

[TConway]

Man I just used up ALL and I mean ALL my luck for 2016.

If any of you have a leaky rear main seal I would HIGHLY recommend fixing it NOW. I just spent all day Saturday doing a full descale flush, new oil and filter, plugs, air filter, cleaned up my van getting everything nice and ready for this work week.

I had to come down out of condo I was working on to make a return call when all the sudden a ton of smoke came pouring out of my van!!!

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Mine burned 3 years ago this week, while running next to the house.

Faulty fan switch on the Ford van

Even with two extinguishers and a hose it was 20 minutes of sheer terror.

 

[hogjowl]

Happened to my TCS rig, but because it was propane and not HE, it didn't catch fire. It just blew a sheen of oil all over EVERYWHERE!

 

[Nate The Great]

I had a watercooled kawasaki motor run out of water in the radiator due to a small pinhole leak in it.... Oil everywhere, on a night job while parked in a parking structure... I was cleaning and it just stopped, I knew something went wrong as my kill switch to the waste tank was not working... I go flying it downstairs only to see the whole place all smokey..... The valve cover ended up melting and the clutch fan was spraying the oil everywhere and onto the engine exhaust.... All while my #3 Little Giant heater was sitting right next to it.....

Soo glad nothing caught on fire....... I did have to clean up the oil on EVERYthing.......

 

[Spurlington]

Heat exchanger cooked the oil to flame level. Thank goodness you caught it in time !!

 

[TConway]

Man I am just so stinking fortunate IT WAS SCARY AS HELL WHEN I SAW THE FLAMES things got REAL.....REAL QUICK.

 

[TConway]

Heat exchanger cooked the oil to flame level. Thank goodness you caught it in time !!

The oil was falling right on the HX diverter and it was HOT my water temp gauge was pegged, I was in the process of cooling it down when the smoke cloud poured out of the van, I stuck my body through the side door to see what was going on and it just boom fire!!! That diverter valve was flipping HOT

 

[hogjowl]

You could have got a whole new rig out of that.

 

[TConway]

You could have got a whole new rig out of that.

I would love a new rig, but I am in the middle of the wand project, OMG this could have been SOOOO much worse.

 

[TConway]

You could have got a whole new rig out of that.

I know but the crazy thing is I couldn't even play it off to my wife, she was like... you can fix don't even tell me you can't fix it. CRAP

 

[Nate The Great]

I also had my power wire to my battery wear through the cable on the bottom of my machine and ground out on my machine... I was driving and I started hearing a crackling sound.. Smoke started filling the van and my courtesy hose that was steel braided was making the contact to the body of the van... Basically the steel braided hose was frying/melting.... That was a weird one...

 

[dgardner]

Yikes Tom, that must have been terrifying! Maybe a heat shield is in order.....

 

[Spurlington]

Ive told this story before here .. years and years ago I was finishing the last of the carpet in the foyer on an empty. To the point where I was on the porch wanding the last foot or so. I turned around and saw smoke pouring out the back of my van. I was in a panic like WTH is going on. Or more like,"oh shit oh shit oh shit !! I noticed 2 wires were glowing red hot so I grabbed a tool to rip-em out. The wires had been rubbing on a sharp edge for some time and became bare enough to start a fire. I dont remember flames but it sure was smoky. Then I had to rewire the machine (minimally) in the rain cause I had a full day of cleaning the next morning.

 

[SamIam]

I know but the crazy thing is I couldn't even play it off to my wife, she was like... you can fix don't even tell me you can't fix it. CRAP

Ya but how fast can you fix it I love having 2 machines.
I had a van go down when I only had 1 truck. Needed a new engine would take 2 weeks to fix.

I bought a new van and in 2 days I was working.

Because most of us can't shut down for 2 weeks.

 

[TConway]

I will have to bust out my monster VWTM, I would use it more but I don't like dealing with the trailer, that really is why I don't use it more. So many of my places I work at are not trailer friendly. I started with trailer, and when you go back to them it really makes you realize how hard we use to work when first starting out.....kinda like a porty vs a TM.
And the dam thing sucks so flipping hard to the carpet.... Hhhmm 370 maybe

 

[TConway]

I called at 5:05 to my local repair shop, he was kind enough to answer after close but he had already shut everything down, So first thing in morning he is gonna call me back, It really isn't that hard a fix, just have to pull the pulleys off. The main seal is right there don't even have to take off any body parts so if it is in stock should be up in running by the afternoon.....crossing my fingers

 

[TConway]

I spent Saturday cleaning up my van and Tm bummer it is gonna take longer tryin to get all the dumped oil out the bottom of her now it is a flipping mess

 

[SamIam]

To bad you can't unhook one of the 4.5 blowers on the VW so your not disengaging every carpet you clean.

It figures the moment you clean it all up, a bomb goes off.

 

[Jimmy L]

Be surprised if insurance would cover a total burn out.

 

[hogjowl]

Mine did.

 

[TConway]

Well 8 hours later and back at it in the same spot, finished up this one and one other I couldn't get to because of the BBQ I had going on. I was able to take the seal down to NAPA auto parts store they cross checked numbers and had two seals so I bought them both just in case I screwed the first one up.

 

[TConway]

Be surprised if insurance would cover a total burn out.

It is crazy but in the moments of the fire, my brain had so many thoughts going through it and that was one of them. My wife is going to be checking on all this again just to make sure we are covered for something like this. All I can say is I am very lucky it wasn't worse.

Mikey gets in newspaper for a penny....My luck I would be in the paper for burning down a townhouse

 

[Mike Draper]

One time was cleaning and Could hear this defening screaming outside. It was my belts, I have to tighten them. The end.