i stop at a light about 4 miles from home. overwhelmed by the stench of fuel. shut it off and pull over immediately. top of driver's side tin is puddled with fuel and it's steaming off. turn key to energize the pump to see where it might be leaking. one of the lead plugs ( which block the interior passage ways) on the inside face of the carbs has popped out and the gas is coming out like a garden hose. KEY OFF!!! find the plug laying on the tin (no tools on board of course ). use a keys and a rock to drive the plug back in and drive home stopping every 100 yards or so. i was sure i was going to watch my car go up in flames. damn.

k

Tim Kornacki had that happen to him about two weeks ago. Weird thing to hear about twice in a month. He went and JB welded it so the plugs will never come out again.

luckily i was on a side road. if this had happened on the freeway, i'm sure the ending would have been much worse.

k

Most likely would have run out of gas before you caught on fire, but hard to say. Never want to see a 914 go up in flames. Glad you caught it when you did.

I can't visualize where the leak was coming from. Any chance you can post a pic for me?

-pt

I don't have a pic, but if you think about the middle of the carb there is a few plugs that are there. They can come out like his did. They just look like little pits a little bigger than the size of an eraser on a pencil.

I had a Weber screen cap (17mm plug under the fuel tee on the side) come out 4 years ago. The car was on fire before the carbs ran out of gas in the fuel bowls. It burned the hell out of my car, flames 30 feet high. I forgot to turn the key off because the car had quit running and the fuel pump kept going, pumping gallons of fuel into the fire.
I was mostly worried about exiting the car, not thinking about the key.
That's why when I repainted the car I painted flames on it.

two words....FIRE-EXTINGUISHER....have one on board

Holy crap man. That would be some scarey stuff. I hope that never happens to me. Even if you did have an extinguisher I am sure getting the hell out was you only thought.

I once had the same problem happen to me in the middle of the night in kansas on a deserted road....

made it home by using cellophane shrink wrap balled up and pushed into the opening with an allen wrench.

that was around 1989, and I learned right then that those lead plugs need to be removed. Pull the carb body and tap the passage. Then use an allen headed cap screw to seal it once and for all with loc-tite

brant

I almost fell out of my chair in shock when I heard......you didn't have any tools on-board?!!


Glad to hear everything is OK.

Were you on your way to Mt. Vernon? Is that REALLY where Teener Tuesday is today? Sorry - too far for me.

I had 2 extinguishers, 1 brand new Halon system, it was incorrectly labeled as "pull to actuate" when it was really a push to actuate, I had the cable set up to pull, so I couldn't push, and I had a
10BC handheld that I threw out of the window before I got out.
The little extinguisher put it out for about .001 seconds before the flames shot up again.
Eventually (a really, really long time) a safety vehicle came over with a big 60# BC and put it out.

What carbs? I assume Webers? Glad all worked out OK. We don't need any flaming smileys.

so i am on a warm up lap for DE at road America, and i smell gas. I look ahead to see what POS car is puking fuel, and i see new 993's and 996's. Strange, but i keep going around the entire 4 mile track, decide to pull into the pits to see if it could possible be my POS putting down fuel. Pull into the paddick, have my buddy pop the engine cover, turn the key back on, he starts screaming shut it off!
Can't find the plug, but a trip to the local Farm n Fleet, one wooden dowl (or wick as my friends took to calling it) and some 2 part epoxy, some shaving of wood, a hammer, and i drover that piece of crap all 200 miles back to Chicago.

Smelling gas isn't bad...when you can hear it and smell it that's when you have problems......

The city decided the roller coaster we called a street needed to be touched up. So they started to do this...

At 7:45 this morning they ripped out the gas line to the house across the street. It happened right in front of my house.....Guy pounding on my door.....note the brace on my sprained wrist pointing towards where the pipe is/was. High pitched screaming whine and the smell of rotten eggs...

And that was the last we ever heard from GWN7.......

When he pressed the return key to send his last message and.......

Where do you think he'll reenter the atmosphere?

did that same thing with my buddy's big block olds, right down to the JB weld. New carb blew out a plug, but now he knows for certain his plug wires are good.

If you have never seen purple race gas boiling in a puddle on a very wide intake manifold I can tell you, you expect it to explode into flames

Nice save, Kevin!! Hope your blood pressure is back down...

The gods of fuel injection have issued a warning!

Convert, or be doomed to fire!

I have one in my 914 always. K, glad to hear things wound up okay. I have been hoping to see you drive your 914 to a local event sometime soon.

Don't mean to sound too, .... umm ........Krusty, but a $100 tow bill would seem like a deal right now, if your car flamed on. My .02 is if you have a fuel leak of that degree DON'T DRIVE THE CAR!!!!

In my early 20's I had a injected 1.8 spew enough fuel to wet the tire under hard cornering. Young 'n dumb, I just found I had a leak and made a (stupid) dash for home. I didn't know how bad the leak was until the tire lost traction on hard cornering. Major tank slapper and I somehow managed to keep it out of the toolies. One of the elbows on the injectors had pretty much cracked in half.

Good to know it turned out alright. Dude, you must of had the benefit of some good karma on that one. Next time maybe you not be so lucky.

naw that old fart can still run fast enough to stay just ahead of darwin!

I had a gauge fitting break off on the carb on my first 914 and ended up using a twig to plug the hole.

Kevin

Glad to hear that you saved it. That had to be some kind of scary. At our age that stuff is kind of hard on shorts.

Dave

i'm sure the puddled fuel was near the flash point. it had run down the various overlaps in the tin. esp where the intakes meet the heads. fuel evaporating like steam.

the plugs i'm refering to are shown in the pictures. carb is an extra set of 44s i have. i pulled the leaking carb, reseated the plug (the other one went in a bit too) and used some 4 minute, 2 part epoxy. seems to be holding fine, but until the paranoia subsides i'll be keeping a close eye on the carbs. any signs of weeping on the plugs in question should be pretty evident. i might be wrong, but if the plugs appear to be *mushrooming* you could be headed for trouble. they are slightly recessed now.

guess what 3 items i removed from the car as the seconds ticked by waiting for the flames.

k

Kevin,

the epoxy will probably be fine, but with the temperature changes and aluminum expansion why risk it?

the correct way to fix the plugs is to tap thread and run a cap screw into the body.
this has been a known racing trick for 20 years.
you'll never have to worry about it again

brant

Fire extiguishers have been standard issue with every 914 in my family ever since my dad expreinced the infamous high pressure FI hose blow off in the 1970's as he was descending a mountain pass.

no doubt brant. when the 44s are refreshed that will be done. the 40s were redone about a year ago when i thought the tired old engine was have carb problems. i hate the idea of redoing them to remove what aluminum shavings might get into the accel pump circuit at this point. i'll check with a local guy about taping the 40s today. you have to wonder why the factory sent them out with the cheap ass plugs. but, there's no telling how old the carbs really are. nothing lasts forever i guess.

k

OK - I'm game. What 3 items COULD you take without any tools.......

Spare tire - fuch?
Stereo?
Roof?

rear signal lens'?

wallet, prescription sunglasss, and my cigs. only took the smokes so i could have something to do as i watched the car burn up.

k

Nice.

how bout another car to drive yourself home in while the other burns??? ---JON