Farwell to the 80t

[Alexander van Gerbig]

    Well after a great day at MtW the worst possible ending happened.  While
driving back following Dan Simoes my car burst into flames.  While pushing
100mph behind Dan I started to smell gasoline and the turbo started sounding
like a vacuum cleaner.  I turned the radio off and listened carefully, noise
got worse, turbo sounded very wizzy.  I flashed Dan to pull off at the next
exit.  When I pulled next to him I put the window down and smelled lots of
gas, plus the engine sounded like it had no exhaust.  I pulled up to a
little median and immediately shut the engine off.  The second I shut the
engine down the passenger's side of the hood blew up and black smoke
starting billowing out of everywhere.  I grabbed whatever I could and threw
it out of the car onto the median.  Dan grabbed his little fire extinguisher
and dowsed some flames, but to no avail, it got hotter.  Flames started come
out from the hood and the paint started turning black.  Luckily a nice man,
retired fireman probably, ran out of his pickup with a huge extinguisher and
killed the fire after I popped the hood for him.

    Everything rubber in the engine bay melted, absolutely the worst smell
ever.  Two of the four fuel lines were broken at the metering head, where
the hard line meets the braided line.  When the problems started all gauges
read normally, high oil pressure, low oil temp, low coolant temp, high
boost, and 100mph on the speedo.  Thanks to the man with the big
extinguisher the rest if the car was saved, brakes, rims, times, suspension,
and probably the engine itself, just nothing rubber around it.  I'm glad I'm
alive first off, secondly I'm glad Dan was there to help, thank you!

    I had the car towed back to Double Z motors in NY and left a note on it,
$350 tow job and my mum couldn't find the entrance to the shop, so I waited
for 2 hours in my burnt out 80, very sad.  I figure I'll salvage everything
possible, new pistons, rebuilt head, turbo, and all that if possible.  I
think this time around I'll be getting a quattro, but my frantic mother
insisted I get a new car and not touch it, blaming me for the fire, what are
mothers for?  I may have parts for sale or not, but I hope to pick up a
90q20v and slap on my bits, not the turbo though...

    If anyone has a clue as to why this happened please explain.  The fuel
lines I used were the stock lines and I had the metal pipes bent up slightly
to clear the intake tract, but never bent or molested the part where the
hard line meets the braided line.  Plus why would the turbo sound very wizzy
if a gas leak occurred?  My A/F gauge read that the mixture was fine?  I
wonder if the turbo seized, but the oil temps where 80C when this happened
and oil pressure at 5bar.  I'll be doing an autopsy as soon as possible, if
the turbo seized then I have some serious beef with guys who rebuilt it, but
I can't see how that would cause a fire unless the turbo got so hot it
started to burn things, but I'd figure the oil temps to be mighty high if
that happened.  What a horrid night...

Alexander van Gerbig -- '88 80t (crispy engine and stinky interior)  :-(

The Audi  80 Pages-----------------
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