Fuse

[gull]

I had one of those heaters in a Bus. Man, do they crank out the heat. They're not really any more dangerous than a home oil burner -- same basic concept, actually.

I've actually never heard of a gas heater starting a fire. Usually when an air-cooled VW caught fire it was in the engine bay -- either the Solex carb would spit out its fuel line nipple, or the grommet where the fuel line goes through the firewall would disintegrate and the firewall would saw through the fuel line. The gravity-feed fuel system and the magnesium-alloy crankcase would take care of the rest.

[Briano1234]

Usually when an air-cooled VW caught fire it was in the engine bay -- either the Solex carb would spit out its fuel line nipple,

Been there done that 2 times, one was on fire, the other was caught before ignition.

[sixsracing]

The heaters were actually rated at 85,000 BTU. They did cause fires,
explosions and some really ugly smoke clouds at times.

[gull]

That surprises me because they had a fair number of safety interlocks. I wonder how many of those were due to people "fixing" the heater by bypassing one of the safety devices?

[sixsracing]

We never actually got to examine one after a fire, but we saw plenty of electrical
genuis inspired by Disney and misaligned or dirty points that would make the
heater false start, load up with fuel and then go BOOM in a small controlled
display of anxiety, we test fired those outside. We finally got to the point of
selling them on an exchange basis, we took their heater out and swapped one
we had already serviced in.