Small engine troubleshooting

[Barney Fife]

when he swallowed some gas flames shot out of his ass

yer turn!

[clare]

Reminds me of what happened to the guy who owned the cottage next to our neighbour's cottage at Amberly Beach when I was a kid. The cottages were down a bank from the road, with the cottage roof just above road level, and parking at the road. The wife was doing some painting while the husband was doing some roof repairs. She washed out the paint brush with coleman fuel and dumped it down the hole in the outhouse. Husband came down from the roof for a "dump" and a smoke.. He's sitting in the outhouse and lights his cigar, then drops the lit match down the hole,, between his legs - igniting the vapours in the pit You can guess the rest........

Then, about a week later he got back up onto the (single plain "shed" style ) roof to finish his repairs, tying a rope to the back bumper of the car up by the road, using it to keep from sliding off the roof by tying it to his belt. The good wife decided to go in to the store at Point Clark to get fresh bread and milk, and pulls the car out of the parking lot, launching poor hubby over the roof and into the parking lot where he had his still tender backside dragged through the gravel until wifey figured out what had just happened..

He said if he didn't know her better he'd have swaorn she was trying to collect on his life insurance policy!!

[Stormin Mormon]

To find what's the marter He pulled on the starter

Tell aunt Bee that Stormin says hey.

- . Christopher A. Young learn more about Jesus .

. .

[Stormin Mormon]

You for real? Sounds like some thing copy and paste off Snopes, or Truthorfiction.

I've seen Coleman fuel give a bit of a whuff when it's poured on wood and lit with a match.

Emergency! did that one about the rope on the bumper, I think it was in season six.

[Tekkie®]

[e-mail] posted for all of us...

Ah, and I thought blue flamers only came out of body orifices.

[Tekkie®]

Wade Garrett posted for all of us...

Won't happen, but do what anybody knows dial 9-1-1

[Eagle]

Tekkie® explained :

Mine is orange. Do I need to adjust the air/fuel mixture some?

[clare]

Only rich guys blow orange flames _ _ _ _

[Tekkie®]

Eagle posted for all of us...

Yes, more tomato content. Apples will help balance it.

[Eagle]

It happens that [e-mail] formulated :

True... :D

[Micky]

P&M because I'm 4 days late answering.

I did that, around 1973. I was in a dark garage working on my brother's car while he was out of town and I guess I was in a hurry.

So I sprayed ether, tried to start it and check for the spark at the same time.

As you can guess, it blew up in my face.

Fortunately, I barely moved a muscle and I didn't hit my head on the hood or the ridge of the hood.

But I did blow off one of the valve covers on his big V-8. The sheet metal was bent up around 3 or 4 of the bolts holding it on. In one case the side was ripped out of the hole.

Then I found that they don't sell valve covers even at the dealer. I'd have had to go to a junk yard, and there are none of those in NYC and few nearby. And I'd have to find a bad engine that they sell parts off of.

So I went to a speed shop and bought a pair of chrome valve covers, but I only put one of them on. He didn't complain.

(I think earlier I'd put, in this '70 Ford convertible, an FM (radio) converter where the clock would have been if it had had one, and I'd done such a nice job that some mechanic complimented him on it. So now I'd damaged his car but I was even.)

I got the cover on and I guess I got the car started before he got back from his vacation.

Wow. 9 months.

[Micky]

This has always worked on cars, but when I got that motor scooter, which probably has water in the gas tank, spraying ether into the air cleaner never reallly made it run. Maybe a little but most of the time nothing. I wonder why.

[clare]

The guy who taught me the trade was previously the service manager in a GM dealership. They had a new truck (637 v6) come in with a leaky oil pan - one of the baffle spot-welds was burned through. The mechanic decided to "just braze it shut", - drained the crankcase, lit the torch, crawled underneeth and proceded to attempt to braze it. About a minute or so into the job there was "one hell of a bang" and the mechanic came shooting out from under the truck like a rocket. To make a long story short they ended up replacing the valley cover, both valve covers, the timing cover seal, AND the oil pan. They found the dipstick on the other side of the shop several weeks later, and never did find the oil filler cap. They suspected it was burried in the accoustic insulation panels in the ceiling of the shop.

[Stormin Mormon]

Sounds like a bit of a surprise. Hope no one was injured.

[clare]

I think a few pair of undershorts needed changing.

It was remembering what Frank told us that made me flush the Riv with hot water, then fill the crankcase with CO2 when I had to do the oilpan repair years later..

[Stormin Mormon]

That sounds like a wise approach. I'd not want to explode like that.

[clare]

It is about a 20 hour job to replace the oil pan on one of those Rivs

- and Ron Day (Martial arts master from Kitchener) had to be in Chi-town for a match the next day - so no time to do the job "right" - he hit a re-bar sticking out of a parking curb hidden in the snow, slicing the oil pan real good.- just as he was ready to leave town. He knew if anyone in town could get him going it was me. I ran about 10 gallons of real HOT water through from the carwash bay while I sent my apprentice to the safety supply to get a 20 lb CO2 extinguisher. By the time he got back I had the patch cut to size and "tinned" with brass. Put the apprentice under the hood, car on the hoist, and told him to give it a good blast of CO2 and then a short blast every half minute or so to keep it full - and I sweat-brazed the patch on, then brazed the edge all around, tapping the heated edge of the patch up snug to the pan before filling the edge.

Had Ron back on the road in just over 2 hours. - no flames, no smoke, no "bang"

[clare]

I know a guy used to fix gas tanks by running car exhaust into them for 15 minutes before welding, and while welding.

Know another guy (former high-school classmate) who swore filling the tank with water was the way to do it - untill one day he was attempting to braze a tank (which took LOTS of heat because the tank was full of water) when all of a sudden the tank started to move - then hit him in the chest as it emptied the water out through the filler in one big "bellch" and bulged the tank beyond repair. I guess there was enough gas trapped in a rusty corner to combine with oxygen freed by heating the rust? that it lit. It sure wasn't because he boiled the water - - -

[Ralph Mowery]

Nitrogen is used in refrigeration lines to keep the copper from forming copper oxide and flaking off and stopping up the system. If the system has been in use some refrigerants will produce phosgrene gas when heated and that isa poison gas. Probably no enough left in the system to cause a problem by the time to braze the pipes.

[Robert Green]

As long as we're having an orgy of spelling corrections, it's actually

Phosgene:

Not related in any way to phospene or phospine - (What, DerbyDad, no phospheen? (-: )