In-the-tank fuel pumps cause death and destruction

When A liar, i mean lawyer sees a chance to make money, this is what you get
A Google search found two serious fires, happening on the same day, one
fire causing death and the other perhaps a million dollars damage as a
result of servicing in-the-tank fuel pumps. Had these fuel pumps been
placed externally, as the usual and proven practice for more than 70 years,
these accidents would have been prevented. Legislation is badly needed to
address this serious design deficiency as professional mechanics as well as
amateurs are exposed to deadly danger by a totally unnecessary fuel system
configuration. In the meantime, lawyers should file a class action as all
manufacturers are currently using dangerous in-tank pumps and millions of
cars are affected. This suit is worth billions and billions. At the very
least, all cars should be retrofitted with new tanks and external pumps by
mechanics wearing fire suits and guarded by fire crews. The changeover
will save hundreds of lives and much damages while costing much deserved
hundreds of millions of dollars of expense to the responsible capitalist
titans, all of whom are totally devoid of industrial ethics.

News Story One:

Thursday, October 28, 2004 · Last updated 4:11 a.m. PT

Inhalation of toxins blamed for Des Moines fire death

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DES MOINES, Wash. -- A man who died in a garage fire after gasoline spilled
out of a truck that was being repaired died partly from inhaling toxic
fumes, investigators said.

David E. Russ, 61, identified Wednesday as the dead man, also had burns on
more than 90 percent of his body, investigators in the King County medical
examiner's office said.

Russ and two other men was trying to replace the fuel pump on a pickup
truck Monday when the leaking fuel caught fire as the trio tried to push
the truck out of a detached garage.

All three ran outside, but Russ went back in and was trapped when the roof
collapsed, Fire Battalion Chief Victor Pennington said.

News Story Two:

Local auto dealership heavily damaged in fire
By Virgil Cochran
Lamar Daily News


Thursday, October 28, 2004 -


Tri-County Ford on Highway 50-287 north of Lamar was severely damaged by a
midmorning fire yesterday, but the manager Jeff Travis said the business
will be up and running again in just a few days.

Travis and Prowers County Rural Fire Chief Marvin Rosencrans said the fire
began when mechanics were attempting to drain a fuel tank on a vehicle in
the mechanic shop to replace a fuel pump. A fuel transfer pump developed an
electrical short, which triggered the blaze.

It rapidly engulfed the shop area of the building, but everyone managed to
get out safely, Travis said.

Tri-County will have temporary office trailers set up on the lot by next
week, Travis said, and will be open for sales of new and used vehicles. In
the meantime, all automobiles for sale will remain on the lot, and
customers are welcome to drop by and shop, and even negotiate deals. But
the business won't be able to finalize deals until the temporary offices
are set up and computer equipment is up and running again next week.

Travis said Tri-County is also negotiating for temporary headquarters for
its mechanic shops, but it may be a few more days before the shop functions
of the business are up and running.

Eight cars in the service area were destroyed and the service garage itself
was heavily damaged if not totally destroyed, but Rosencrans said damage to
the office and parts storage area was limited to mostly smoke and water
damage.

Local firefighters were called to the scene about 10:40 a.m. yesterday, and
the Prowers Rural Fire Department was assisted by the Lamar, Wiley, and
Holly Fire Departments.

As for the existing building, Travis said the business was well insured and
that he would meet with insurance adjusters sometime today.

 

I have found that one cannot be too careful when working with
gasoline.

Last winter, a person in my neighborhood was working on his motorcycle
in his carport. He setup an electric heater to keep warm. He
disconnected the fuel line, and some gasoline spilled out on the
floor. As soon as the fumes came in contact with the heater, well you
can imagine what happened. The cold dry air didn't help either.

Because the fire dept. was able to respond quickly, most of the damage
was confined to the carport. The bike was a total loss.

-Kirk Matheson

 

AMEN to that!

 

Senator John Edwards, is that you?

Two examples, of how NOT to properly handle volatile fuels,
deleted for lack of relevance. LOL


mike hunt

 

Perhaps if your degree was in electrical, rather than mechanical,
engineering you might. One reason is liquids can not burn. By
being inside the tank, there is no possibility of a combustible
mixture or fire. If for example the electric fuel pump were
outside the tank, in the line, there is a much greater
probability of a combustible mixture occurring in the event of a
fuel leak. OK?


mike hunt

 

Wound Up wrote:
..

Nomen in Latin is "name" and Nescio is "I don't know", so, he doesn't
know his own name.... but I suspect it's Nader! Probably a descendant.

 

Hi...

I'm electrical - but sure not interested in taking sides
in this conversation.

I do have one question though that I'd like to ask if
I may? When I have a quarter tank of fuel left, what
exactly occupies the remaining space?

Ken

 

This shows your lack of knowledge about the times required
to replace in tank fuel pumps and the older on-engine fuel pumps.
For someone who knows what they are doing (like myself), there
is very little difference in labour time needed to change an in-tank
fuel pump as opposed to the older on-engine fuel pumps. And as
far as "reality"....the trained tech has already taken his lumps on
the warranty side of things (low times) and has become extremely
efficient at doing the job by the time it becomes a "customer pay"
job. Who are you to pass judgement on them.....come and walk
in their shoes for a mile or two and then you will know what
flat rate is all about.

This may be true in a certain percentage of labour operations,
but most operations, "you" as the owner, could not come close
to doing it in the time allowed by the book. You might be able
to beat the time on a thermostat, but if you were working on vehicles
all day long, you'd lose your ass. I'd extend a challenge to anyone
who isn't a professional technician to come on in and work with me
for a week. It'll be an eye opener both ways....you will see the jobs
that I make tons of time on, and you will see the jobs that waste my
time. It usually works out to about 140% efficiency overall. And you
would learn why I'm worth that.

Good god....whoever spends that kind of money to get started in this
trade is a lunatic. Or has some sort of "tool fetish". I've seen those
types
of technicians. Lot's of shiny tools, but have no clue what to do with
them.

Too many fail or quit, because they imagine that they can be making
80 grand in five years. It doesn't work that way....it takes a lot of
time and experience to become a good, honest, flat rate mechanic.
I laugh at the young guys in our shop that think they should be making
14 hrs a day. It certainly won't happen if they take an hour in the morning
to "get going"...and spend another hour or two a day outside smoking and
bullshitting with everyone. You gotta work hard in this trade if you want
to make good money. And you "can" make good money.

Ian

 

If I see where you're going with this, the inside of the fuel pump
(where all the electrical commutation/sparking takes place) is 100% full
of liquid fuel under all conditions. Missing only one ingredient for
fire or explosion: air/oxygen. Comforting thought, eh?

To answer your question: air (but all the arcing and sparking is inside
the pump with only liquid fuel).

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')

 

Fuel vapor No oxygen and under slight pressure which keeps oxygen from getting
in, or shall I say not enough to support any type of combustion. No degree
needed for that.

 

Gasoline vapor, but not a combustible mixture. Even
when the gauge shows empty, the contacts are still in
the fuel.



mike hunt

 

Hi...

Or maybe one is

See if I follow.... they make a mediocre attempt
at creating a closed environment. Then we remove
some of the contents (burn some of the gas). And
end up sith a slight pressure?

Ken

 

Are you sure? The pick up is under fuel, but is the pump completely under fuel ?
The "contacts" are in the top of the pump, so exposed to tank atmosphere. Being
no O2 or not enough to support combustion.........moot point.

 

Much more comforting that having the pump outside the tank where all of
the ingredients are available.


Matt

 

Hi Bill...

Sorry I started now.

How about at the final few minutes of running out of
fuel?

How about turning on the ignition (running the pump
for a few secs) when the tank is "empty" ?

How about a flaw in the diptube?

I'm gonna respectfully suggest that were I given
a choice; I'd take a pump in the engine compartment
(the other side of the firewall being a nice side
effect bonus)

Ken

 

Excess fuel is returned back to the tank. What temperature does gasoline
evaporate? Just that question should spark some thought. Now add heated fuel,
heated by compression and being near a heat source ( engine ), that statement
should provoke some thought as well. Take some gasoline, put it in a closed
non-vented container and shake it, then open the lid, notice there is now
pressure in the container? Try to draw liquid out of a sealed container, what
happens? It collapses. So the tank is designed to hold a small amount of
pressure made by the fuel vapors. This is a DOT requirement. There are two
valves on a tank. One is in the fuel cap the other is the tank vent. This
provides a sealed tank that holds a slight pressure of no more than 2.1 psi over
atmospheric pressure.

 

No O2, no burn.

Still no O2.

dibtube? Do you mean the fill neck? Hole in the fuel tank system can be
dangerous, but you need to look at basic laws of physics, you may not be so
worried.

The same sheet-metal that makes the "fire-wall" also separates you from the fuel
tank.

 

How many cars have you heard of that have exploded or caught fire from
an in-tank fuel pump? In my case, the answer is zero so I don't lose
much sleep over it.

I'm more worried about an inadvertant air bag deployment than I am about
my gas tank exploding. The former is much more likely than that latter
and I've heard of several occurrences of unintended airbag deployment.


Matt

 

Due to the lawyers I don't believe we have firewalls any more...... that
would insinuate that a fire is possible. They are now called bulkheads.
Bob

 

Pumping section (gerotor, turbine, or roller vane section as the case
may be for a given design) of the pump is below the commutation section.
Check valve in the fuel line keeping the pump full of fuel after pump
is shut off. There will always be a column of liquid fuel above the
pump commutation level.

See above.

See above. It may be that no single-point of failure will cause a
problem. But, as with any system, you can hypothesize a **combination**
of failures that would creat a problem (cutting the odds) - you'd have
to argue whether or not such a combination of failures was credible.
And statistically, those combinations *will* happen. Don't ask me why
there haven't been real "unexplained" explosions.

Too much heat - fire and vapor lock potential in the modern engine
compartment.

I hear you though. Do a google search on my name and
rec.autos.makers.chrysler and "commutation" and you'll see that I was
asking the same questions of Ford and Chrysler engineers when I was an
engineering manager for fuel pump products as a supplier - you'd be
surprised how many of them never even thought to ask the questions -
it's just the way things were done since before they were hired, so they
never thought about it.

I often said it to them, and I said it in this ng, that if in-tank fuel
pumps had not been invented before now, and I thought of doing it, I, as
an engineer, never would have suggested it in today's legal and
corporate environment - I would have kept my mouth shut for career
protection.

Actually, I seriously doubt that it would be being done now if it had
not had several years of being done with no indication that it was a
real problem. IOW - you could never prove, in theory, to a committe of
lawyers, managers, insurers, and MBA's that there could never be a
scenario that an explosion could not occur from some credible
combination of (1) running the tank out of fuel and (2) a bad in-line
check valve in the lines (allowing the liquid to drain back), and (3)
someone turning the ignition key to "run" and the fuel pump running dry
inside. Oh there will always be those who will have some explanation of
why it could never really explode - but wipe out their knowledge that it
has ever been done before and put them in the parallel universe where it
has not been done before and ask them to be the first person to
volunteer to sit in the first vehicle in which it was ever to be tried
the first time it was cranked up, and see if they will do it. Everyone
has great hindsight knowing that it is in reality apparently safe. But
to know ahead of time for sure...?

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
adddress with the letter 'x')