Well, I'll tell you.
First off, my garage did not burn down. A friend is using space in my garage/shop to rebuild a motor for his single turbo 5.0 mustang and he was there to put it out.
If he had not been there, i would have lost my garage.
And my roadrace mustang.
And my friend's 94 mustang.
And my boss's supercharged original rust free 77 Celica.
And my 900ss.
And my 07 KTM SMR with 525 miles on it that i just bought.
And my TIG welder, metal cutting chop saw and every hand tool I own. And I own a lot.
Im guessing more than $125,000 in loss once you add the cost of the contents to the cost of the structure.
I consider this a close one, and it would have been ENTIRELY my fault.
Im in the process of making a 750ss into a 900ss. Well, the 900 won't run with the 900ecu plugged into the 750 harness. Things are different.
I plugged the 750ecu in (left the 900ecu bolted in) just to see if I could get it running to verify the engine was put back together correctly. I grounded the 750ecu case to the 900ecu case with a jumper (alligator clips on each end) as these are metal case ECU's and they need to be grounded.
This is fine on it's own. That let me crank the bike over at least. But my battery was low so I put the charger on it.
Then i went in the house for dinner.
Dan turns around and sees fire on my bike, directly under the propped up fuel tank that has fuel in it.
Thank god or allah or whoever that it was small and Dan snuffed it out with a rag and unplugged the charger.
The 750ecu had slid down the back of the air box and came to rest against the + positive clamp of my battery charger.
The path to ground was over my tiny jumper cable. The insulation melted and lit.
You know the rest.
Moral of the story goes- when using a charger, make sure nothing can ground out on it. If something can, don't leave it unattended.
I got lucky. Really lucky.
:o :o
Glad to hear it didn't get out of hand. [clap]
I believe you now owe Dan beer of life when ever at your house.
(http://cabcalvinandhobbes.tripod.com/ChPictureGallery/hobbes_yikes.gif)
First thing tomorrow I'm picking up a fire extinguisher.
The one I have is in the house, where it would have done no good.
Phew. <wipes brow>
Wow. Amazing escape. I'll keep that in mind.
Quote from: Monsterlover on February 02, 2009, 06:44:36 PM
First thing tomorrow I'm picking up a fire extinguisher.
The one I have is in the house, where it would have done no good.
Phew. <wipes brow>
second thing should be call your insurance agent and make sure everything in your garage is covered on your current policy.
Yeah, i already thought of that too.
wow, im really glad you got out of that one!
Also, next time get a charger with an inline fuse to prevent this from happening.
And [thumbsup] to your buddy. I believe beer for life (as long as he's in your garage) is an acceptable offering to appease the angry garage gods [laugh]
You are so lucky, [thumbsup]
Get the fuse type charger ;D
Examples of fused-type charger?
it wouldn't have helped. The battery was still connected and was happy to provide the juice after the charger got unpluged.
Quote from: Monsterlover on February 02, 2009, 10:51:59 PM
it wouldn't have helped. The battery was still connected and was happy to provide the juice after the charger got unpluged.
Ouch.
Yeah, no fuse can prevent that.
Wow, glad to hear it didn't get out of control.
Put that new extinguisher (Can't believe you didn't have one. Shame on you!) in a hi vis location so that visiting friends will have no trouble finding it.
After reading this I was thinking of getting a second one for my shop!
+3 on beers for life. [thumbsup]
Like Rosan Rosana Dana always said: if it's not one thing, it's another.
I keep fire extinguisers all over the place although many of them are 10+ years without any service. I only needed one once when I yanked a set of undrained carbs off an M900 and while spilling a little gas, the edge of the carb hit the (UNCOVERED) stared solenoid terminal and I instantly had 6 foot high flames.
Quote from: Drunken Monkey on February 02, 2009, 09:48:43 PM
Also, next time get a charger with an inline fuse to prevent this from happening.
And [thumbsup] to your buddy. I believe beer for life (as long as he's in your garage) is an acceptable offering to appease the angry garage gods [laugh]
and prefered project space for life too
Quote from: herm on February 03, 2009, 08:26:43 AM
and prefered project space for life too
Let's not let things get out of hand here....
Glad to hear this didn't turn out worse!!!
Kudos to the beer for life friend.
Yeah!
I bought a fire extinguisher today :)
It's getting mounted next to the man door tonight.
:)
Just one? Think big, they're cheap.
I do plan to buy at least one more.
Quote from: Monsterlover on February 03, 2009, 02:52:13 PM
Yeah!
I bought a fire extinguisher today :)
It's getting mounted next to the man door tonight.
:)
Get a fire blanket as well, a lot less messy and easier to get out of the airbox.
Quote from: brimo on February 04, 2009, 01:10:31 PM
Get a fire blanket as well, a lot less messy and easier to get out of the airbox.
And drink a lot of beer so you always have to pee.
wow ML you are one LuCKY guy :o
Not to sound argumentative but concider it was not explicitly the battery charger's fault but the battery itself. You noted that the ECU slid down and came to rest on the battery charger clamp which was presumably attached to the battery too. Even though a partially discharged battery may not crank the engine there's still plenty of energy left to arc and create enough spark and heat to ignite nearby flamable material if shorted. The latest technology battery chargers will not deliver any current until they sense the terminal clamps are attached to the battery and it has at least a small charge and are usually current limited to reduce the likelyhood fire.
But then I could be full of it..
Quote from: Ducnial on February 04, 2009, 04:56:40 PM
Not to sound argumentative but concider it was not explicitly the battery charger's fault but the battery itself. You noted that the ECU slid down and came to rest on the battery charger clamp which was presumably attached to the battery too. Even though a partially discharged battery may not crank the engine there's still plenty of energy left to arc and create enough spark and heat to ignite nearby flamable material if shorted. The latest technology battery chargers will not deliver any current until they sense the terminal clamps are attached to the battery and it has at least a small charge and are usually current limited to reduce the likelyhood fire.
But then I could be full of it..
Actually I'd just outright blame Monsterlover and not the battery :-*
Though I'm assuming it's going to be the only time, so need to mention it.
Quote from: MrIncredible on February 04, 2009, 05:16:36 PM
Actually I'd just outright blame Monsterlover and not the battery :-*
Though I'm assuming it's going to be the only time, so need to mention it.
^
This is 100% correct.
I just did it, and didn't think far enough ahead. I was sort of preoccupied with getting into my house to change and get food.
So, the error started with me :-[ :-[