80t Autopsy

[Alexander van Gerbig]

    Well today was mildly depressing.  The car looked pretty sad sitting in
the junkyard surrounded by destroyed vehicles stacked on top of each other.
I pulled everything that had no damage in the engine bay, besides the engine
itself which comes out later.  I got things out and really searched around
to see what had happened.  Pete at Double Z is very convinced it was
electrical and started underneath the battery tray.  When he had the car up
in the air he said there is almost no evidence of the fire, but the positive
wiring that runs into the firewall was all melted and he said it looked like
the culprit.  He also made a good point that if it had been a bonafied fuel
leak the whole engine would have gone up because the leaking or blown off
lines at 100psi would spray fuel all over the engine, mostly on the driver's
side since that is where the injector lines where facing.  There is no
damage to the driver's side of the engine except for smoke and a melted
brake reservoir.  The airbox was melted at the backside where all the wiring
runs right by it.  The reason the turbo was getting louder was because one
of the downpipe bolts was missing, which is very odd indeed and doesn't seem
to work into the wiring explanation.  Maybe just a coincidence that bolt
worked it's way out at that point in time.  I heard the whizzy turbo about
4-5 minutes before I smelled the gas and pulled over.

    Well now I know what happened.  When I was talking to my sister she
triggered my brain, which has been offline since the "incident."  While I
was driving behind Dan right after we left I smelled a slight plastic
burning smell, probably around Gorham, NH I noticed it.  It was very faint,
I closed the windows and turned the fan on to see if it was coming from my
car.  I didn't get any smell anymore, but when I put the windows down I
smelled it again, for about an hour on and off, but it was so faint.  I
thought it was brake stink, everyone knows that smell when you bed new pads,
that smell but definitely not as pungent.

    My theory...  I must have had a short in the positive wiring, possibly
the alternator wiring, something.  It heated up real hot, melted the back of
the airbox, which wasn't really where the fire was because the top of the
airbox isn't melted the bottom corner is.  Finally the heat of the burning
plastic worked away the fuel line solder.  The gasoline smell I got was the
fuel line starting to fall apart.  When I stopped no cold air was running
through the engine bay to keep the heat from building up.  The fuel line(s)
let loose and that was the explosion which triggered the fire which caused
the most damage.  Just my luck, all that work on the turbo project and it
wasn't even the damn cause of the fire.  Makes me feel a bit more confident
about my mechanical skills, but it's a sad thing nonetheless.

    I am planning on getting some sort of TYP89 quattro.  I may not go after
a 20v because the offset on the front hubs is different, brakes won't fit
without a new alu hat or bracket.  So maybe I'll get a 90q and then wait a
bit, build up a 10v motor with an EFI system which will get plopped into the
90q later on.  Though I would like to have power from the stock motor and
just leave it be, little discouraged of course, but that will fade I hope.
I could use the turbo I have and the pistons to make another engine for a
swap.  That might be easier than selling the stuff, but I do have to get rid
of ATP EM, the rebuilt head, the waterpump, and that's about it.  The
waterpump is brand new, some VW kid will want those toys, hopefully...

Cheers and thanks,

Alexander van Gerbig -- '88 80t

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