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Nearly had a fire.
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dawie
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Joined: July 27, 2008
Posts: 217
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 4:58 am    Post subject: Nearly had a fire. Reply with quote

Just had this unusual experience.

Opened the bonnet of my 412, and soon afterwards there was smoke. Coming from a piece of carpet.

At first i was confused, as the battery was disconnected at the time. Then saw the upside down hub cap. It was concentrating the hot sun rays onto the carpet, like a magnifying glass.

Seems the 412 hub cap has a near perfect parabolic dish shape. (Except for the part with the VW logo).

Cleaned inside of the hub cap and tried concentrating the sun's rays onto a piece of newspaper. Newspaper was burning within seconds. Wonder how many fires started this way, and people afterwards never realized what had happened?
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Type4ever
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Joined: November 08, 2011
Posts: 47
Location: Veghel the Netherlands
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 12:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The strangest story I ever read about a type 4.
Come live in Holland, today it was in this area -20 C at night.
The last time when that was happen't was in 1968. (the same year as the 411 arrived!!)
During the day the sun was shining, but it was freezing cold!!

We need the heater for sure. Wink

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Ton
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dawie
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Joined: July 27, 2008
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Location: Cape Town, South Africa
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 1:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When this happened, it was around midday and temperature in the 30's (Celsius). Here in the southern hemisphere it is mid summer at the moment.
Temperature seldom reaches below freezing here during winter, although up in the mountains and higher altitude places it can get very cold and snow.

By the way, the 411/412 was also locally built in South Africa. (It replaced the type 3 in 69).
The fuel operated heater was never available locally, not even as an option. The standard heat exchangers was the only source of heat. Think air conditioning was never available as as an option. However, there was a choice between basic version with carbs, or "LE" with D-jetronic. The 1800 was not available. The 1700 was used for all models until 1975. Like Europe, manual transmission was most popular on all versions, including station wagon, with optional automatics mainly used by elderly women and handicapped people.
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Lahti411
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Joined: January 26, 2005
Posts: 223
Location: Lahti, Finland
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 1:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Great pics Ton! I have never seen these before.

Dawie, that has to be a a chance of 1/1000000 for something like that to happen! I've heard some forrest fires may have gotten starded by a broken bottles' bottom so in right conditions everythings possible. Glad you noticed it before anything bad happened. Usually the reason these cars get into flames is bad fuel lines on injected models or on the auxiliary heater.
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My cars: 1972 VW 411 Variant; 1973 VW 412 4d sedan
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Type4ever
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Joined: November 08, 2011
Posts: 47
Location: Veghel the Netherlands
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 3:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lahti411 wrote:

Quote:
Great pics Ton! I have never seen these before.


I'm also (I became Chicken-skin when I saw them for the first time!!), but last summer I bought the complete 1971 Type 4 Eberspacher-training voor VW-dealermechanics. Razz
And also the complete training for the D-Jetronic Type 3 and 4.
Totally more than 150 pics.

Lucky for me in Dutch. Wink
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Lars S
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Joined: October 04, 2007
Posts: 780
Location: Sweden
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 10:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Type4ever wrote:
Come live in Holland, today it was in this area -20 C at night.

Ouch, -20,0 must be terrible for Holand with the sea so close. Not that I want to be "worse" but we had -40,0C thist Saturday morning, the second coldest ever. Thought of starting my 412 which is stored in a barn, just to prove the D-jet's good cold starting ability but realized that I had summer oil in it...


/Lars S
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Porsche 914 -72, Bahia Red daily driver Smile
VW411 2-d -70, White, sold Sad
VW412 4-d, -73, Gold Metallic, daily driver
Suzuki T500, -69, Candy Gold, sold Sad
Suzuki K50, -77, Black, daily driver
BMW R69S -69, White, sold Sad
Husqvarna 118cc, -47, Black, Sold Sad
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Wildthings
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Joined: March 13, 2005
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice pictures, from the looks of them you would actually think that the heater would roast your. Too bad that VW didn't use large enough channels to have sufficient air flow to get all that heat forward.
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