We headed south today—for a little while.
First we stopped at the grocery store where a guy behind us honked and yelled that we’d dropped a tube. I waved then quickly parked and jumped out of the bus to go pick it up. As I ran up I found the guy’s wife standing at the entrance to Safeway holding our “poop hose.” She clearly had no idea what it was. She just stood there happily holding it out to me, “Nobody hit it!”
Ali and the kids went shopping while I drove back the way we’d come to find the cap that had fallen off the PVC tube that holds the hose. Nobody had hit that either.
Down the road we continued, stopping at Fort Baker to take in a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Fort Baker is down at the bottom, right next to the north end of the bridge. Nice view, and free parking. Double bonus.
Back in the bus I announced we were heading back up the road to Sausalito for ice cream. We pulled out of the parking lot and were about a hundred yards up the big hill when smoke started billowing out of the dashboard. Not overheating steam style smoke, but a good crackling plastic fire.
I stopped—obviously—and jumped over to the passenger glove box where I grabbed the first fire extinguisher while Ali grabbed the other out of the closet. Fortunately there is an open space above the wood kick board (the front wall of the dash area) where I was able to shove the extinguisher and start spraying.
While I was doing that Ali was herding the kids out the door. I emptied the first extinguisher then ran outside and grabbed my drill. I quickly removed a few screws so I could pull the wood back and get a better look under the dash. Flames were still licking, though not much.
Suddenly the engine cranked and fired up, revving wildly. The shorting wires had caused the starter to turn over. Perfect. I was still scrambling to get the flames out, but luckily a passing biker who knew what he was doing jumped into action, grabbed a wrench and pulled the wires off the batteries. Engine stopped.
A few more squirts of the extinguisher and the fire was out too.
A Park Service cop showed up right then (mighty quick) and fortunately had nothing to do but direct traffic around me. He lent me his phone and we got Good Sam to send a tow truck out. With everything squared away I backed the bus down the hill into a Maintenance Building parking lot—where we would end up spending the entire day.
Ouest drew a picture book of the entire incident within half an hour. Eight pages of policemen, fire, and the bus on a tow truck. She said to me, “I’m going to make a book every fire.” She apparently thinks this will become a routine of ours.
Turned out some miscommunication with Good Sam caused them to cancel the tow. We didn’t know this until nearly two hours had passed. I could rant on and on about my time on the phone with them, but I’ll just say that it took four calls, ninety minutes on hold, and six hours to get a tow truck there. We’d gone from feeling optimistic at noon to severely worn out and pissed off by six. We were a mile from the Golden Gate Bridge! How could it take six hours to get a tow truck out to us?
But he did eventually show up, and even let us all pile into the truck with him for the ride. It was a painless five miles back to the RV park we’d left this morning. He backed us in, and was off.
Could they look any more sad? I think they were more tired than anything. Lowe fell asleep in the tow truck on the ten minute drive.
I worked some magic on the electrical front and got our shore power working—so we’re not completely dead in the water here. Ali fixed the kids some dinner, washed them up, and just one hour past their normal bedtime we were done for the day.
Initial inspection of the bus shows there was no damage other than the wiring. The wiring harness is completely melted. This is going to be a project.
31 Comments on “Fire”
Wow! Glad you are all safe and I hope you can find the cause.
same issue I had with good sam club towing.. will never use them again
Hi Pat! I’ve been following your blog for a few months now and enjoy it very much!
Also, just wanted to say that I’ve had great service with Sam’s Club… But my ’79 Ford Van was simply towed from my drive-way.
Take care and if ever you decided to go all the way North East to Montreal, you’ve got a place to park! 😉
Glad it didn’t get out of hand guys. Definitely a Griswold moment…
Wow exciting 5 minutes and then hours of boring. Hope you can find the source/cause quickly.
Do you have a wiring diagram for your Travco? With vintage Winnebagos there was a useless single sheet of paper without much detail for the wiring for the ‘house’, (the part that Winnebago built), but a good wiring diagram in the service manual for the part that Dodge built. The original Dodge wiring was fairly well done, but the few changes made by Winnebago in the dashboard area (for things like controlling the generator and the clearance lights) were done in haphazard fashion – and werent documented anywhere.
I hope Travco did things better.
Ugh. What a PITA. I am super glad that ya’ll are all right and that LY Bumfuzzle is going to be okay.
Sorry to hear about the fire! I’m in Santa Clara, and I want to help. Maybe you can use a car while you’re getting the Travco cleaned up? My Westy is available. Get in touch if so.
And when you’re back on the road, we hope to see the blue bus in Santa Cruz, where the Open Studios Art Tour continues through the next two weekends.
“I’m going to make a book every fire.” — So great!
I laughed all day every time I thought of that.
We just had a fire in our Vanagon while camping in Capital Reef. First time its ever happened to us and I hope its the last: http://freerangekinder.blogspot.com/2014/09/fire-in-hole-by-isaac.html
Luckily we caught it early and it did only minor damage to the wiring and plumbing, a couple more minutes and our cabinetry would have gone up in smoke! Nice work having an extinguisher on hand and the presence of mind to use it when you needed it.
Good time to simplify the wiring harness! Get rid of what you don’t need. Think about the wiring in the split bus!
While I feel for you on being upset with Good Sam… To be fair I’ve had similar or worse thing happen with AAA. Only in my case after telling them I had no cell service they cancelled the tow TWICE because they couldn’t call me. 9 hours of walking up and down a mountain I finally got a tow truck, which was too small to tow my camper.
So I guess you’s takes your chances no matter what. my next tow service will be selected on price and length of tow offered.
I guess I should also say, without any disrespect to your vehicle repair chops, that I’m a trained avionics technician, and the Westy and I would like nothing better than to check into the RV park to help with the electrical repairs!
That’s what I’m talking about !!! Wish I was there too, I love putting a dashboard on my knees and digging in, have re-wired a lot of crispy messes.
Please read my e-mail to you today. I have a suggestion for help in Marin.
Pat,
Just think about how well you will understand the electrical system after you are done with this project. Just be careful, it seems that after you understand every aspect of one vehicle, you are tempted to buy a different vehicle. Take your time.
Todd
Fire in the rig is probably the only thing that really terrifies me. Thank goodness you were able to catch it early.
Nina
In aircraft, an electrical fire like that is sometimes due to an over-voltage condition. The regulator can fail in a way that sends full bus voltage to the alternator field, sending the alternator output to hundreds of volts at high current. Not all electrical systems in light aircraft have a circuit to detect over-voltage and cut off the field, and sometimes that circuit has failed. Many owners have replaced old original Ford regulators in their aircraft with modern, solid state regulators with solid over-voltage protection.
Don’t know how often this failure occurs in ’60s-vintage card or RVs. In any case, best not to energize the charging system until the regulator has been checked out.
Love the last picture. Poor little waifs!
Crap!
I am glad your OK and I hope it isn’t anything I wired!
If you find that it is, Tell me OK?
Magic
Is it too soon to ask for pictures of the drawing? I dont know if I can wait for the book to be published 🙂
All kidding aside I am glad you guys are OK
Maybe some Bum friends in the area can rally to the cause!
Ah, the memories. I roared up to our house as a 17 year old in my ’59 Willys Overland Wagon 4×4, the battery shifted…
… fell forward, arcing, and lighting up the entire electrical system.
My dad pulled off the battery lead as fast as humanly possible. Wire was burned, in place, with partial plastic on the wires.
We both rewired the Wyllis with the latest, best wiring and connectors. I know now to use dialectric grease on all electrical connections with good connectors and good use of shrink wrap tubing. We did it over a weekend, it lasted decades.
It’s just a hiccup, not a deal breaker. Steady on!
I had a Grand Wagoneer start up from a short like that. And the starter motor wouldn’t shut off or disengage. Removing the battery cable did nothing as once the alternator is spinning the battery becomes unnecessary. You have to disconnect the alternator too. A decent wire cutter is fastest for that.
I forgot to mention that it took a few minutes to cut the alternator out of the circuit. While the starter was trying to engage with the now running motor the teeth of the starter and the main flywheel chewed each other up. I had to replace both. I hope that didn’t happen to yours, but it’s a potential risk to be aware of.
I’m truly sorry for this setback, Bums, and thankful that it wasn’t worse, but when I read, “Ouest drew a picture book of the entire incident within half an hour. Eight pages of policemen, fire, and the bus on a tow truck. She said to me, ‘I’m going to make a book every fire,’” I couldn’t stop laughing. I hope you can understand and will forgive me.
TJ
What a huge bummer. And scarey.
I went from laughing at Ouest’s comment about making a book for every fire to almost crying after looking at the photo of the kids sitting, leaning against the wall with those sad faces. And no ice cream. Double bummer. 🙁
P & A
natural born sketch artist . could be an exciting career. all that childhood education/ encouragement paying off.
fd
Let us all give thanks for being stranded where you are!
And for the continuing life of bus and occupants all…
Much better on a land yacht, than having that happen while out at sea! It could have been a lot worse, and just another day in the life on your adventure. I am even jealous of this day while sitting at my desk not working while at work. Just sayin
WOW—-Well it is a classic RV so I guess you have to expect some issues once in a while. Glad you are all OK. I’ve been following along with your exploits since you two were sailing around. Think you were about half way around when I came across your site. Always interesting. What a wonderful way for two kids to grow up. FJ