Fire in the hole

Out on a ride a couple of weeks back, we stopped at the Huntley Hill Climb, near Wollongong NSW. Great fun watching all sorts of cars getting flogged up a old colliery road. When I kicked her into life, as we were leaving, I got a fairly hefty kick back. I put this down to me feeling a bit weary and not putting in enough effort. So another good kick and she fired up okay, motoring out of the car park slowly the engine felt a bit fluffy, then I heard a squeeky sound, which I immediately thought, damn the head gasket has blown, however one of my riding mates looked horrified, and yelled out fire, ouch. Got off and saw smokes and small fire in the standard air cleaner, fark! As the engine stopped it got worse, but luckily my son, riding pillion had ran down to a nearby creek and come back with cupped hands of water, extinquished and much relieved we could see the filter had burnt out. Now I am thinking, the 850 air cleaner plate next to the carbs had a pipe deflector piece welded to it, that made replacing the air filter or getting at the carbs a real chore, so I swapped it out for the flat style 750 item. I figured this extra stuff on the 850 was an attempt to reduce induction roar? And of course a bit of carb sucking sound is not to be missed, is it, hehe!
So does anyone know what this extra part was really for, was it to try and reduce air cleaner fires, I can only assume I get a little fuel stand off on overrun that helps to make the filter easily flammable? We had just earlier came down a long mountain pass, so maybe that helped.
I have ordered a K&N replacement filter, these should be less flammable

Cheers Richard

Hi Richard

You are very lucky as water and fuel fires don't nomaly go hand in hand, how do I know???

About 30 years ago I was starting my Norton up at a friends place, my motor was kicking over I was just about to put it in gear when my mate was yelling out FIRE FIRE, I thought he was saying bye bye untill the flames leaped up my leather clad arm, then a few comecial errors, the whole top half of my Norton was going up in flames, lucky my fuel tank insn't bolted down as soon as the fuel lines melted through we got the tank away from the bike, we ended up suffercating the fire with a trap, what a mess, melted seat, paint job on the tank was gone and fire damaged speedo and wiring, was very lucky to only suffer that little damage, bike was only off the road for a week waiting for the seat to be rebuilt.

Ashley

I had that happen about a year ago too, the carb spit back and lit the air cleaner, but the Fram element smoldered like a cigar, no open flame...maybe it had some sort of retardant on it? Also switched to a K&N and no repeat so far, but from what I've read here they can burn too.

Ditto, but a 500 velocette, kick back set the carb alight! My mate blew the flames out, supprising what human lungs can do..in panic :!:

ashman said:

Hi Richard

You are very lucky as water and fuel fires don't nomaly go hand in hand, how do I know???

About 30 years ago I was starting my Norton up at a friends place, my motor was kicking over I was just about to put it in gear when my mate was yelling out FIRE FIRE, I thought he was saying bye bye untill the flames leaped up my leather clad arm, then a few comecial errors, the whole top half of my Norton was going up in flames, lucky my fuel tank insn't bolted down as soon as the fuel lines melted through we got the tank away from the bike, we ended up suffercating the fire with a trap, what a mess, melted seat, paint job on the tank was gone and fire damaged speedo and wiring, was very lucky to only suffer that little damage, bike was only off the road for a week waiting for the seat to be rebuilt.

Ashley

Click to expand...

You are quite right, I have seen firemen on a public fire demonstration inflame a petrol fire by applying water on to the fire, it certainly helped the flames :!:

The first thing we did was grab the hose when the fire was raging but when we got to the bike the hose was so streched it pulled off the tap, a blessing realy when we throught about it later on as the water would have made it worst and would have done more damage, the orginal speedo chopped a lot of damaged and kept it in the shed as a memory, but 18 months ago I had to get my Taco rebuilt, so I also took the damaged speedo to see if it could be saved, he said yes and asked if I wanted to keep the orginal face as he could clean it up, he put new dials in and zeroed the milage as I had just rebuilt the motor, when I picked them up the speedo was as good as new and the face came up better than the Taco, but it costed a bit $300 for the speedo alone, the Taco was $200 for the rebuild.

Ashley

I've never had back fire fire in filter, just gas fire tickling over old points location in P!!. I only know Combats - So is there or is there not a flame baffle in the 850 air boxes? Often a screen is placed over carb intake to prevent filter flash fires which is fairly common on off road type bikes. Online has plenty of stories of K/N oil filters catching fire, even with their metal screen over the oiled filter material.

Okay so the K&N might not help the potential fire risk in future, bugger. I wonder if the 850 type manifolded air cleaner face plate will? Maybe I will re-install that one.

Cheers richard

http://www.whitedogbikes.com/item--Bike ... isher.html

Don't leave home without one!!

For you veterans, did the original pleated paper air filters have an expanded metal flame arrester built in?