Today we would have a trip to a Beetle meeting
After a few kilometer this was happend....

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only the hair of the owner is now a little bit shorter

sorry for your loss

holy shit, if that wasnt a kodak moment

Man, that's sad. Hopefully the owner is insured fully for that loss.

I hate to see a 914 destroyed by fire, somehow it seems preventable.

Paul

That is sad! Glad the owner is all right.

Jim

Wow... ... Glad to hear the owner is safe...

holy shit

any idea what happend in detail ??

very nice car ... a real six ??

Gustl

A fire system is cheap insurance and reassuring to have aboard. Looks like a
handheld may have been used first by the residue seen on the ground.

I hope you are able to save it, such a nice car i am very sorry for you.

I lost my SUV to a fire last fall such a helpless feeling watching it burn to death.

My 914 now has a fighting chance if it flames on.....

Yes a real 72er six
Mathias is fully insured but the lost of the car is very hard after
3 years of restoration and only 1 year of driving.
His heart is broken.

What really happend? Nobody knows

Send our best wishes....hopefully he does not scrap the car..

Rich

Glad to hear he is okay. It hurts to see those pictures.

Very Sad, especially since it's a Six.

However my views on saving what's left are less than others. The heat from the fire would affect the tensile strength of the metal that's left. Also the chemicals used to fight the blaze will start the rust cycle immediately. Not to mention the state of mind of Matthias after his restoration efforts.

T.C.

OMG! My greatest sympathies for the loss. That's something that truly gives me pause and makes me wonder, have I done enough to keep my car 'safe'?

That is just fuching awful! Glad he's OK & hope for a full recovery for that six.

How did you plumb front the front to the engine compartment ?

The kit comes with carbon tubing that i ran down the center tunnel then plumbed the nozzles in the engine bay. The tubing press fits into all of the connectors for simple installation.
I purchase my SPA foam system through Pegasus on sale for about 300.

A fire system may have been able to prevent the loss of a beautiful car like this.

I think the hand held extinguishers only buy you a little time until they run out.

I sure hope this car can be saved.

Looks like he tried to put it out judging from the powder on the left rear wheel arch...

If you get an extinguisher, a halon or CO2 is better. The halon is heavier than air and will fill the engine compartment if it is sprayed in.

Holy! I'm sad for him. That really is sobering!

I hope he gets a big fat insurance check and it comes back better than ever.


Ferg

Having lived through this, I have to admit this brings back some horrid memories for me. There is nothing worse than watching your beloved 914 burn.



Betty's 914 burned as bad, and it is back up and running. It was a lot of work to bring back. But seeing her car back on the road was worth it.


So.. get out there and fix it. You will regret it if you don't. If you need moral support on the repair, contact me. Betty and I have lived through it.

[quote name='DEC' date='Aug 2 2009, 01:58 PM' post='1198415']
Today we would have a trip to a Beetle meeting
After a few kilometer this was happend....

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only the hair of th


What in the HELL is happening here??? This is the third burn to the ground 914 I have heard (or experienced) in the last month!!!!!!!! We cannot afford to lose these cars like this!

when we know what cause the fire then we can do something to prevent it ..tell then its all knee jerk stuff.someone keep us posted about the cause ...I`m very sick about the mans car

man, this blows. I hope it can be fixed.


chappy, VERY NICE setup! I am totally impressed!

When I saw that first picture, all I could think was "oh look... a picture of my car". It hurts so much to look at those pictures.

ABSOLUTELY the car can be fixed! My car burned from the engine forward through the passenger compartment. The windshield melted into the car from the heat. We had one hand held extinguisher that we used. It took two huge chemical extinguishers on board the fire trucks that responded, and half the contents of a tanker truck to get my car put out. The magnesium fan shroud had gotten hot enough to light off and they had to cool it down enough to quit burning.

My car has been up and running for many years now since "the incident" (we find it difficult to talk about still) and we have not seen any structural issues from the fire. The longs have not been reinforced, it gets autocrossed hard and it is a daily driver (the odometer is at over 325,000 miles).

Yes it was totalled by the fire... yes it took a few years for us to even find the heart to fix it up again... but yes it has absolutely been worth it. Like Clay said; if you need any encouragement, help, parts or whatever... let us know! We are all here to help if you need it.

It would have been harder to live with if we HADN'T fixed him back up!

Betty, you and Clay are like the St. Jude of 914-dom

I feel so sick right now...

This is terrible. The good thing is that cars can be replaced, people cannot! I am glad the owner is ok!

In case anyone is interested in Chappy's setup, it can be found here: Pegasus Auto Racing

And Tangerine fuel lines can be found here!

Fire is no joke...

Both are TOP on my list for this winter's project

Geez. Very tough to see and go through... Let us know how we can help!

I hate these threads


Poor 914... a 6 at that... a 72 six at that

I dont know all there is about Chappys system but seems to me that if the fire is below the engine tins it wont really do any good ..Maybe plumb something under the tins and above ... fight it from top and bottom.. if a fire bottle is all you have and the fire under the tins your s.o.l....Cause of this blaze may never be known its so burn up ...JMO
MikeC


Just looked at the pix again and it does appear chappy has nozzle`s on the under side as well ....good think`n sir

The sight of that 6 on fire blows ass! I had a 69 Mach 1 burn up; it is truly enough to make you throw up. Glad to hear the driver is ok. Just remember: man made it; man can fix it.

that sucks.

I have a total of six nozzles on my system - 4 on top - 2 below all are pointing at the stuff i worry about.
I went with the big bottle that can support this many nozzles, weight wasn't a concern.

I have first hand experience in car fires, pictures from last years hunting trip.

Let me guess, exhaust from one truck cought grass on fire and took the other two with it? BTDT also. Watch a friends New 88 F150 4x4 go up in flames because the BroncoII a few feet away parked in tall very dry grass / weeds. Grass bust in flames from heat from the CAT I think. We were 3/4 mile a waywhen we smelled smoke and no one had a way to put it out.

Lesson learned, dont all park in the same spot. We were pretty far away from it when they went up, I was deep in the cattails- try moving fast through that!
The fire burnt down 3/4's of the wetland area too....thats why we are standing well upwind of the fire.

Thanks for the gouge on the foam system Chappy. Looking into it this week. Don't want to lose my cars.

I met with Mathias last night.

He, Wilco and Tobi are currently in the US scouting for possible shells and/or rollers.

Still breaks my heart looking at those pictures ...


We spent a lot of time washing down the pain with good German brew at my favorite local dive-bar!
Andy

Seeing these pix is so sad. This very thing happened to a friend in 1973 to his '71 teener. I had made a highway repair on the injector hoses by shortening and clamping them when two of them broke while we were on a backpacking trip in North Carolina. It got us home...

Where I made him PROMISE to replace the parts at the dealer immediately after we got back to Columbia SC.

One year later it burned to the ground in front of us at the dorm. He leaned over while the firemen were trying to put the fire out and told me he probably should have replaced those injectors. Nuts

Good luck with this project.

Wow, very sad sight but hopefully it will be saved and returned to glory.

I have a 4L AFF Spa system and hope it would do its job if ever called upon...

So what are the most likely causes for a 914 to catch fire?

I am sorry for your loss

I would think #1 would be the old, brittle fuel lines. Are they the same on a /6?

(not trying to diagnose what happened to the original poster's car, just answering patssle's question!)

Hurts to see something like this. Hopefully there will be a rebirth in the future....like with Andy's shell

I am not familiar with the fi fuel pump wiring on the 914 but on a lot of gm cars the pump is started by the ignition sw in the start position and when oil pressure comes up the oil pressure sw keeps the pump running. No oil pressure no fuel. I do think that the additional oil and stuff on the motor probably helps keep the fire going and then any magnesium lights off on a air cooled motor. I guess a extenguisher system should be in the plans.

Just to clarify, they went through 3 fire-extinguishers but had no luck putting the flames out.

This was a normal /6 street car. I doubt anyone here has a full race fire system or even more than one extinguisher in their street car.

In the end, all they could do was watch the car burn down and take pictures ...
Andy

So what's the best course of action? Fuel cut off, changing fuel lines every 3-5 years?

Is this 914 being rebuilt?