Never fill a running Generator

[otolith]

loafer123 said:

otolith said:

Power steering fluid also. Stupid place to route a rubber pipe of flammable fluid, right over the exhaust manifold, fking French engineers...

If it is any consolation, my 928 is the same and I recently had a weeping hose.

I got it trailered to the garage, and the last journey befoe that involved my son sitting poised with the fire extinguisher in the passenger seat!

This was a 309 GTi I bought twenty years ago - drove it home from Manchester to Windermere, as I put full lock on to park the hose ruptured all over the exhaust manifold and caught fire. Got my money and my trade in back, at least.

[Tonsko]

This is an old one:

Petrol attendant worker uses mobile phone to check fuel level in tanker

[TangerinePool]

trashbat said:

You can see this yourself if you watch carefully at some petrol stations - the haze through the vapour as it escapes. Modern pumps are required to be fitted with vapour recovery systems (I don't know to what degree they work) and so it's possibly less of an issue these days.

When I worked for Shell in 2003 the tanker drivers used to tell me the company saved £100,000 in liquid fuel from the recovered vapour!

[ooo000ooo]

otolith said:

Power steering fluid also. Stupid place to route a rubber pipe of flammable fluid, right over the exhaust manifold, fking French engineers...

Peugeot by any channce?

[DrDoofenshmirtz]

Stupid neighbour was filling his kids mini-quad bike with petrol right next to a lit BBQ - the resulting fireball was quite scary.
Luckily him and the kid got literally blown out of the way and weren't hurt or burned.
He then tried to put out the intense fire with a hose.

I'm not sure what was most scary - his stupidity (on two counts) or the fire itself.

[Jayyylo]

Quite scary, but totally awesome fireball!(no one got hurt)
This video was posted in the Youtube thread recently and I think it sums up the danger of petrol vapour.
(It's a guy using petrol to light a garden fire).

[irocfan]

Jayyylo said:

Quite scary, but totally awesome fireball!(no one got hurt)
This video was posted in the Youtube thread recently and I think it sums up the danger of petrol vapour.
(It's a guy using petrol to light a garden fire).

lol - that's the sort of thing that could easily happen to me!!

[Chris Type R]

Jayyylo said:

Quite scary, but totally awesome fireball!(no one got hurt)
This video was posted in the Youtube thread recently and I think it sums up the danger of petrol vapour.
(It's a guy using petrol to light a garden fire).

And another - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbisRaEfsOY

[ZesPak]

irocfan said:

Jayyylo said:

Quite scary, but totally awesome fireball!(no one got hurt)
This video was posted in the Youtube thread recently and I think it sums up the danger of petrol vapour.
(It's a guy using petrol to light a garden fire).

lol - that's the sort of thing that could easily happen to me!!

I was sure it was going to be this one that was posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbisRaEfsOY

[shakotan]

Pixelpeep said:

Du1point8 said:

Thought it was proven its the vapor or needs to be an actual flame.

if you throw it in a puddle of petrol it will put it out.

Unless it's a massive lifesize fake cigarette like they used in Con-Air.

Which is it? Massive or life-size?

[Chris Type R]

ZesPak said:

I was sure it was going to be this one that was posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbisRaEfsOY

Snap - see above.

[OllyMo]

Used to do this all the time, week in, week out when I was working events. Windy as well, petrol all over the place, exhaust etc. Never had a single problem, but I assume we were very lucky.

Every single corporate event company I know still does it, and does it all the time.

Ooooops.

[NDA]

Dusty964 said:

WhyAyeMan said:

You wouldn't put petrol in a car with the engine running, so why on earth would you do it up because the engine is in a generator instead? Can anyone enlighten me as it seems like a pretty foolish thing to do.

Nobody ever fills up over here in Dubai WITHOUT the engine running, it's too hot to turn off the aircon along with the engine.

With a generator turning it off kills all the electrickery - router resets, computers reset etc etc Foolish, but possibly understandable.

It's the same reason farmers suffer horrific injuries when they can't be arsed to turn the tractor off. Same mentality - of which I'm guilty.

[soad]

Tonsko said:

This is an old one:

Petrol attendant worker uses mobile phone to check fuel level in tanker

[Rickyy]

mjb1 said:

The thing with decanting petrol on a boat is that the vapour is heavier than air, so it fills the boat up like a bucket.

It's similar to why you never hear of outside gas leaks causing explosions - the gas disperses unless it's a huge leak. Indoors it has chance to build up to the air/gas ratio to combustible levels.

Unless it's LPG, which is denser than air and will create a "puddle" around you. That's why caravans have loads of vents in the floor.

[Tango13]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoYYEMMTCts

The full video is pretty unpleasant to watch but it's the only health and safety video i've ever watched that has had a lasting effect on my attitude to safety.

[trashbat]

Tango13 said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoYYEMMTCts

The full video is pretty unpleasant to watch but it's the only health and safety video i've ever watched that has had a lasting effect on my attitude to safety.

Then you, sir, have never watched Staplerfahrer Klaus.

[Pit Pony]

caziques said:

It's petrol vapour that's the problem.

Strangely enough in a crash it's brake fluid rather than petrol that is the culprit for starting fires. Petrol onto a hot exhaust manifold is fine, brake fluid catches fire.

Hence why the hydraulics on aircraft is one of either Skydrol

(Got some skydrol in my eye the other day. A bit hurty, but after a couple of hours it stopped stinging)



(or FUELDROLICS. - Yes, they save weight, by using the fuel pressure to control the engine. No need for separate pipes)

[BrassMan]

OllyMo said:

Used to do this all the time, week in, week out when I was working events. Windy as well, petrol all over the place, exhaust etc. Never had a single problem, but I assume we were very lucky.

Every single corporate event company I know still does it, and does it all the time.

Ooooops.

Could someone fill in the blanks for me? A modern generator won't have clockwork ignition (no points or other open sparks) and the exhaust won't be hot enough to ignite the vapour (although it will give you a huge cloud, presenting a notable risk). According to OllyMo, hundreds of running generators are filled every weekend with no incident (before we get to the camping pissheads).


The fire prevention chaps here love this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOzfq9Egxeo

[TVR1]

Council Baby said:

Emsman, AKA Dusty964, he's ok now though

Yes,yes,yes but we all know that it was the blokes missus he was shagging what done it.