Pagoda SL Group
W113 Pagoda SL Group => General Discussion => Topic started by: Pawel66 on May 05, 2018, 14:23:45
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A friend of mine was telling me a story once about a fan in ventilation duct that started a fire. He was in the garage at that time, working on his 300SC.
Today I noticed my fan in the ventilation duct stopped working. I took it down from the ceiling and undid the casing to look inside. I touched the engine and I burnt myself...
Just one more thing to watch out for...
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Years ago someone in the UK MB club had his garage burn to the ground with his Mercs in it, due to a battery he was charging at the time igniting. Scary!
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...due to a battery he was charging at the time...
Which is precisely why in 17 years of storage in the off season, I've NEVER charged my battery with a tender. Sometimes I disconnected the ground. I did that this past winter, while in the museum--their own good rules. I'll only use a charger outdoors--better safe than sorry.
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I was actually present when a 12 volt battery blew-up. Sounded like a shotgun. Horrible mess: acid all over. I was about 30 feet away in the back yard. Battery was on a charger.
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While visiting friends in N.C. I heard about another car/garage fire. It was caused by a USB charger plugged into the cigar lighter port (always powered on) in an old VW Bug. Don't know the exact details but from now on I'll remove mine when the car is parked in the garage.
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As I understand it, the risk of explosion with a battery is greatest when rapid (full) charging a dead battery, not keeping a charged, healthy battery at full charge with a maintainer. I've used maintainers (battery tender junior) on all of my cars' fully charged batteries while in winter storage for years and never had the slightest issue.
There are many things that could start a garage fire with the cars and the garage environment. I'd say the best policy is a combination of common sense prevention and a fire/smoke detector/alarm.
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The numerous potential sources of fire scare me to death.
The other day I was working under the dash of my W100 grosser. I moved a stereo amplifier slightly and i scared myself silly as sparks flew and a small fire broke out.
After my heartbeat levelled, I did some investigation and found some complete muppet had wired in a device directly to the battery.. Still not sure what it was but there was a tiny exposed wire, looked like a capacitor of some kind which blew up when i shorted it with the amplifier housing.
Upon further investigation i found there should have been an inline fuse, but someone had decided to use some thick copper wire as a fuse instead of the real thing. GRRRRR
Made me think about how we never really know what pratt could have been working on a used car in the past, without any regard for safety.
Similar story when I building my W124 500TE. The wiring I removed from the donor car was next to lethal. The only reason it hadnt already caught fire was that it hadnt been disturbed. The main live wire runs through the body of the car, which then feeds down onto the starter and alternator. No fuse for the main battery cable.
This "lower harness" degrades over time and the wires had zero insulation left on them once they were moved.. It all just crumbled. A disaster waiting to happen.
I have always had fire alarms in my garages, fire extinguishers all handy and I hardly leave anything switched on apart from battery conditioners..
Now I feel that the most likely things to self combust are our own cars!
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My nextdoor neighbor had a garage fire last week. The one-day-old battery powered skateboard was on the charger for the first time. They managed to contain it but it does make me think about all of the accidents waiting to happen. I never thought anything of leaving my battery charger on the car inside the garage. Now I will at least think about it...
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Rapid charging or discharging of a battery will release explosive hydrogen gas. When hooking jumper cables, make the last connection is to a good solid metal ground on the engine. In this way the spark from the connection is away from the battery and explosive hydrogen. I have seen more than one battery blow up over the years.