Fuel Leaks Cause Thermal Events! Yikes!!!!
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 1:52 pm
Had a small thermal event (fire) sometime in the recent past. Mostly likely happened while I was charging around the racetrack at Fernley. Charred the spark plug wires insulation a bit and the first two inches of the plastic fuel line from the tank. Scorched my paint off the block but stayed confined pretty much below the induction tubes thankfully. It was running okay Saturday when I first noticed the damage. Upon investigation I discovered I had folded the Weber's 40DCOE18 top cover rubber gasket back around one of the piston assemblies for the cold start unit on the forward carbie. Because the cold start units weep fuel there normally it went unnoticed unfortunately. When cornering at about 1G the fuel obviously sloshes up into that area and it must have happened under that condition.
While I had the carbie off I did some testing of the cold start units by inclining the carbie and looking for fuel leaks. It's obvious that it does leak fuel out the cold start units when cornering hard around right-handers. I'm removing the damn things and installing blanking plates pronto. One thermal event is enough and I don't want to press my luck anymore.
Needless to say my goal of building a 5vdc supply for my Weber throttle position sensor and getting it functioning didn't get done this weekend. Need the TPS to really dial in what's happening to the mixture for a closeup 3D mapping analysis with the AFM.
One bit of good news. Weber is back in business according to Webcon and producing new carbies again. I'll confirm that when I call Mike Pierce today.
While I had the carbie off I did some testing of the cold start units by inclining the carbie and looking for fuel leaks. It's obvious that it does leak fuel out the cold start units when cornering hard around right-handers. I'm removing the damn things and installing blanking plates pronto. One thermal event is enough and I don't want to press my luck anymore.
Needless to say my goal of building a 5vdc supply for my Weber throttle position sensor and getting it functioning didn't get done this weekend. Need the TPS to really dial in what's happening to the mixture for a closeup 3D mapping analysis with the AFM.
One bit of good news. Weber is back in business according to Webcon and producing new carbies again. I'll confirm that when I call Mike Pierce today.