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Absolutely Gutted In Morocco
- Thread starter Andy
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silvercruiser
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This is what we use in work (not the exact ones) they cut straight through armoured cable so will be quick and easy for battery cable.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150-mm-RA...607492?hash=item43b16e57c4:g:4akAAOxydgZTJYxS
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150-mm-RA...607492?hash=item43b16e57c4:g:4akAAOxydgZTJYxS
silvercruiser
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From my experience with the bonnet cable that seized on the colorado. the metal end finisher on the plastic outer sleeve is what clamps the cable.
On my colorado it had corroded and that was enough to pinch the inner cable and stop it opening. i had the luxury of time and took the cable out of the plastic pull handle and had to pull the cable using grips, if you leave it on the plastic pull handle you run out of travel and it doesnt open.
maybe you had a combination of corrosion and heat expansion that was enough to clamp the cable.
On my colorado it had corroded and that was enough to pinch the inner cable and stop it opening. i had the luxury of time and took the cable out of the plastic pull handle and had to pull the cable using grips, if you leave it on the plastic pull handle you run out of travel and it doesnt open.
maybe you had a combination of corrosion and heat expansion that was enough to clamp the cable.
Some general thoughts around this subject:-
The features you need with cable croppers is speed and ease of use with the ability to get into a confined space.
Ratchet cutters are fine for cutting armoured cable but I wouldnt fancy trying to get them onto a battery cable looped in behind the radiator grille for instance as they need a bit of room to work. Plus, with time being of the essence I wouldn't be happy with the time factor in their ratchet operation.
I think if I were to set up cables to be cut, I would consider putting them from the negative terminal, vertically behind the front grille about 50 to 80mm away from each side clipped to the grille somehow, then looped back up to a connection point to the chassis, ideally the original. I would use P clips, cable ties, or something with a definite hold but only clip the top part so that when cut the bottom part can fall away. I would use 35mm welding cable which is copper and nicely flexible.
Then I would be looking at getting some cable croppers, something like these:-
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131990679188
Or these which are more compact and are much nicer to use as the above need 2 hands.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131977654912
Although the latter are heavily insulated, this is not necessary as the main danger is from sparking not shock, as 12v or even 24v is below the electric shock level. Both these cutters are more than capable of cutting 35mm welding cable in seconds with no danger from sparks. The first, longer handled variety may even be easier in some cases depending on whether the truck concerned has a bullbar etc fitted.
It's also worth noting that there could be a fault to the split charging system, either caused before or during a fire. Therefore the Earth cable of the leisure battery also needs to be cut or isolated and in a place where this is easily achieved.
All these cables for cutting need to be away from the battery in case there is any hydrogen present. Yes, we are talking the truck on fire, but with some batteries mounted in the back of trucks, or in boxes under the floor, you could have it away from the fire but still feeding into a fault elsewhere. The last thing you want at that point (or any point) is to be showered with hot battery acid from an exploding battery.
Another point is that these main cables are unlikely to be the ones causing the fire and probably won't even be particularly hot. It's far more likely that smaller cabling has become damaged and earthed down. Smaller cabling will get much hotter much quicker under fault conditions, especially a short circuit, and if it has earthed a long way away from the battery, will get hot along its length, potentially starting fires in more than one location, inside the truck as well as in the engine bay for example. Hence it is imperitive that the correct size fuse is placed at the supply end whenever the cable size is reduced as close as possible to the reduction in size.
Starter cables are not normally fused. In normal service these are so robust and well routed and protected they are unlikely to be damaged significantly. If they are, they will easily deliver enough current to blow the fault clear if this is possible. If not, they are sized to be able to withstand the complete discharge of the battery (ies) before they cause a fire. This should be borne in mind whenever batteries are uprated or changed in any significant way. It may be that the main starter cables need to be uprated too.
Winch cables are the same as starter cables and should be sized to be able to withstand full battery discharge unless it's a smaller winch in which case they will need to be fused. Terminals should ideally be covered. Think about a cut Earth cable for the lights for example falling and welding onto one of the winch solenoid positive studs. This would very soon become incandescent setting fire to anything flammable it is in contact with.
Hopefully I've covered everything.
The features you need with cable croppers is speed and ease of use with the ability to get into a confined space.
Ratchet cutters are fine for cutting armoured cable but I wouldnt fancy trying to get them onto a battery cable looped in behind the radiator grille for instance as they need a bit of room to work. Plus, with time being of the essence I wouldn't be happy with the time factor in their ratchet operation.
I think if I were to set up cables to be cut, I would consider putting them from the negative terminal, vertically behind the front grille about 50 to 80mm away from each side clipped to the grille somehow, then looped back up to a connection point to the chassis, ideally the original. I would use P clips, cable ties, or something with a definite hold but only clip the top part so that when cut the bottom part can fall away. I would use 35mm welding cable which is copper and nicely flexible.
Then I would be looking at getting some cable croppers, something like these:-
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131990679188
Or these which are more compact and are much nicer to use as the above need 2 hands.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131977654912
Although the latter are heavily insulated, this is not necessary as the main danger is from sparking not shock, as 12v or even 24v is below the electric shock level. Both these cutters are more than capable of cutting 35mm welding cable in seconds with no danger from sparks. The first, longer handled variety may even be easier in some cases depending on whether the truck concerned has a bullbar etc fitted.
It's also worth noting that there could be a fault to the split charging system, either caused before or during a fire. Therefore the Earth cable of the leisure battery also needs to be cut or isolated and in a place where this is easily achieved.
All these cables for cutting need to be away from the battery in case there is any hydrogen present. Yes, we are talking the truck on fire, but with some batteries mounted in the back of trucks, or in boxes under the floor, you could have it away from the fire but still feeding into a fault elsewhere. The last thing you want at that point (or any point) is to be showered with hot battery acid from an exploding battery.
Another point is that these main cables are unlikely to be the ones causing the fire and probably won't even be particularly hot. It's far more likely that smaller cabling has become damaged and earthed down. Smaller cabling will get much hotter much quicker under fault conditions, especially a short circuit, and if it has earthed a long way away from the battery, will get hot along its length, potentially starting fires in more than one location, inside the truck as well as in the engine bay for example. Hence it is imperitive that the correct size fuse is placed at the supply end whenever the cable size is reduced as close as possible to the reduction in size.
Starter cables are not normally fused. In normal service these are so robust and well routed and protected they are unlikely to be damaged significantly. If they are, they will easily deliver enough current to blow the fault clear if this is possible. If not, they are sized to be able to withstand the complete discharge of the battery (ies) before they cause a fire. This should be borne in mind whenever batteries are uprated or changed in any significant way. It may be that the main starter cables need to be uprated too.
Winch cables are the same as starter cables and should be sized to be able to withstand full battery discharge unless it's a smaller winch in which case they will need to be fused. Terminals should ideally be covered. Think about a cut Earth cable for the lights for example falling and welding onto one of the winch solenoid positive studs. This would very soon become incandescent setting fire to anything flammable it is in contact with.
Hopefully I've covered everything.
Bert
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So good.
Does anyone think that maybe chucking a fire blanket over the top would help to buy you precious seconds to facilitate unloading what can be saved when all else fails?
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Maybe it would appear so Chris, but this is all the sort of thing I have to consider on a daily basis with mains electrical safety. I have seen your installations on the 12 volt side which are clearly well thought out with plenty of protection. I have seen others that are a fire waiting to happen.
I personally would prefer to overthink and be safe considering the subject of this thread, than underthink and have the potential for a problem. By all means tell me what is overthunk and I will rethunk it.
I personally would prefer to overthink and be safe considering the subject of this thread, than underthink and have the potential for a problem. By all means tell me what is overthunk and I will rethunk it.
I meant in general Rich. Just saying that we might be reacting to a very unfortunate and unpleasant event in a slightly over cautious way. I have wired mine up in a 'proper' way but by no means do I think that it's fire-free. But these things are relatively rare given the numbers of cars on the roads and the fairly small number of cruisers that have gone up. I'd say, if you are going to mess with the cabling, then know what you're doing. Ensure that all joints and connections are sound and that cables are protected from rubbing. I just think there is a potential here to focus too much on dealing with a fire rather than preventing the fire in the first place. There are only a few parts of the car that you can really set fire to. Lots of it it pretty incombustible. Where there is cabling in those areas there needs to be a consideration of additional protection. You also have to consider just what you are going to do when you now have saved your vehicle but it's immobilised completely somewhere remote possibly. It now vulnerable, has a value and will probably start to attract vultures.
Very good points there Chris. I had the same thought in my post to mention the preventative measures such as fusing and cable sizing, routing and protection, Prevention being far better than dealing with a fire.
I agree, there seem to be very few cruiser fires but for me, one cruiser fire is one too many. The info in my post is only really detailing the level of build on the electrical side that Toyota have adopted. So if additional items are added to the same high standard then there should be no greater risk of fire.
I agree, after an incident as shockingly horrible as this there is a tendency to (over) react. Lord knows Byron could be forgiven for working on a trailer tent based on a fire tender, but the reality is that these things do rarely happen. With good electrical practice we can all keep it that way.
Again, we don't yet know what exactly started the fire on Byron's truck. It would be great to know but maybe we will never know. What we do know pretty surely is it was electrical.
I agree, there seem to be very few cruiser fires but for me, one cruiser fire is one too many. The info in my post is only really detailing the level of build on the electrical side that Toyota have adopted. So if additional items are added to the same high standard then there should be no greater risk of fire.
I agree, after an incident as shockingly horrible as this there is a tendency to (over) react. Lord knows Byron could be forgiven for working on a trailer tent based on a fire tender, but the reality is that these things do rarely happen. With good electrical practice we can all keep it that way.
Again, we don't yet know what exactly started the fire on Byron's truck. It would be great to know but maybe we will never know. What we do know pretty surely is it was electrical.
Towpack
Well-Known Member
Starter/winch cables etc excepted the main thing you need to remember is fusing at the correct rating and securely routing cables to prevent chaffing etc. The former will prevent fires caused by the latter. "Over thinking" a solution is very much a personal thing and depends on how high an individual rates the risk. What seems like a sensible precaution to one may seem like paranoia to others. Obviously a vehicle prepared for remote expedition/over landing will need to meet different criteria compared to a daily driver so in that respect, over thinking/engineering a safety feature could be a good thing.
Personally, if I was preparing a vehicle for such use I'd go for a quickly accessible battery isolator switch(s) and an on board extinguishing system. Not particularly cheap but worth it considering you may already have spent £1000's on vehicle mods.
As for the bonnet release it's a really basic cable operated mechanism, as most vehicles are, and should't take much to rig up a second cable pull, locked if required maybe hidden behind the bumper or in wheel arch etc. JMO
Personally, if I was preparing a vehicle for such use I'd go for a quickly accessible battery isolator switch(s) and an on board extinguishing system. Not particularly cheap but worth it considering you may already have spent £1000's on vehicle mods.
As for the bonnet release it's a really basic cable operated mechanism, as most vehicles are, and should't take much to rig up a second cable pull, locked if required maybe hidden behind the bumper or in wheel arch etc. JMO
These are great Andy and exactly what I'm talking about. Toyota has done its own version of this with the fusible links it fits. The problems come when additional items are added or the spec is altered in some way.
garygiles1963
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HI
Byron, very sorry to hear of your traumatic loss. Had read the line concerning Import Tax, 4 times. After all you been through, you had to deal with import tax. bonkers
I been wondering why protective clothing have not been talked about. Maybe this has been discussed before in other forums and decided this of no use in this kind of situation. I been wondering if a pair of fire/heat proof gloves, goggles, overall and maybe head gear. This wouldn't take that long to put on. Would it have helped in this situation. Might have help to handle the hot metal bonnet. I been think of having a small bag with the above clothing and a fire extinguisher.
This maybe a basic given and your wondering how I didn't know that. Maybe gloves are just not practical.
Just a thought.
G.
Byron, very sorry to hear of your traumatic loss. Had read the line concerning Import Tax, 4 times. After all you been through, you had to deal with import tax. bonkers
I been wondering why protective clothing have not been talked about. Maybe this has been discussed before in other forums and decided this of no use in this kind of situation. I been wondering if a pair of fire/heat proof gloves, goggles, overall and maybe head gear. This wouldn't take that long to put on. Would it have helped in this situation. Might have help to handle the hot metal bonnet. I been think of having a small bag with the above clothing and a fire extinguisher.
This maybe a basic given and your wondering how I didn't know that
. Maybe gloves are just not practical.Just a thought.
G.
"My fire" started as a consequence of Mr T's power supply to the rear wipers situated in the aulance doors. Now, before I get suggestions of it not being a "proper" 80 series (which I'm reasy to accept on the chin) I still don't know how a live wire can short out to such an extent to cause a fire, without blowing the Mr T designated fuses.
Because I trust nobody, I checked the rating all the fuses upon initial purchase of the truck, and not only did none of them blow during my incident, the short even melted the under-dash fuse box carrier of all the fuses, Karl kindly posted me a replacement.
So the chances of melting the fusable links close to the batteries would be even less.
A red-hot wire does all sorts of damage in a loom, it affects other wires that have nothing to do with the original fault, and can set off a chain reaction causing other live wires to short.
Personally, I was very disappointed that a short on the back door would burn all the way back to the fuse box without blowing a fuse. That will always be a mystery.
We've seemed to have somehow assumed that poor Byron's incident was a heavy drain short, but the chances are it was no more serious than a side-light or similarly innocuous short, but nevertheless, it's enough to ignite plastic insulation and anything flammable close to it.
From my understanding of the event, the key to (possibly) saving the moment was threefold and in this order:
1. Opening the hood to get access;
2. Disconnecting the batteries;
3. Extinguishing the fire.
Any attempt to extigish the fire with the power still providing the heat source would be limited and of course, not being able to access any of it because the hood wouldn't open prevented battery disconnection and effective fire-fighting.
So, by installing a simple external bonnet access cable pull, rapid and effective access could be secured.
Then, disconnection of the batteries would have been possible. Whether to use a 10mm spanner, cable croppers or a kill-button switch, makes little difference.
Finally, attacking the fire with effective extinguishers, assuming the fire is accessible with the hood open.
My problem was at the rear, so I instinctively grabbed the extinguisher first, ripped away the side trim and blasted it first. Because it was obviously electrical, I then ran to the front with my 10mm spanner and disconnected the batteries. When I got back to the rear, there were flames, which I put out with the second extinguisher I carry.
I was lucky, but the point I'm trying to make is that installing a grand's worth of automatic under-hood fire fighting equipment would have done nothing in my rear fire scenario.
This was again in my mind when writing my previous post Clive. This sort of fire can be caused by a low current Earth wire shorting to another higher current positive. The resultant load is too small to blow a fuse but too high for the skinny earth wire to cope with. Depending on where the Earth wire is connected the hot wire could extend a long way. This sort of thing is prone to happening inside door connection looms.
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You need an external battery master switch as on racing cars. That way when you're upside down, on fire, fumbling for cable cutters a friend can turn the power off.
Which is where we first started Frank. There's pros and cons to every solution. They have the cable cut point on racing cars as well as a cable operated external battery isolator.
It seems good sense to me to have more than one method in case the first method is inaccessible. But where do you draw the line? Answer is individual preference I guess.
It seems good sense to me to have more than one method in case the first method is inaccessible. But where do you draw the line? Answer is individual preference I guess.
moggy1968
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I don't know about on vehicle electrics but when I use to deal with domestic solar (upto 600v DC) we didn't use fuses, the reason being that the fault current in the event of a dead short is so close to the fuse rating it's actually unlikely to trip it. All the fuse would do is protect against overloading the circuit, which on solar wasn't an issue.
MarkW
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Unfortunately we'll never know the exact cause of the fire. But during discussion etc over the next few days 3 things were considered to be important learning points/improvements.
1 - Have a drill for an emergency and a grab bag with essentials in. Documents are key to clearing up the aftermath. Have a set of copies as well. Something I do is scan them and then email them to myself so I can at least print copies from any computer.
2 - a means of disconnecting the batteries somewhere. Rally cars have these for years and their systems should be well up to the rigours of Overland travel.
3 - some way of opening the bonnet if the catch fails. This is helpful in non Fire situations as welll.
1 - Have a drill for an emergency and a grab bag with essentials in. Documents are key to clearing up the aftermath. Have a set of copies as well. Something I do is scan them and then email them to myself so I can at least print copies from any computer.
2 - a means of disconnecting the batteries somewhere. Rally cars have these for years and their systems should be well up to the rigours of Overland travel.
3 - some way of opening the bonnet if the catch fails. This is helpful in non Fire situations as welll.
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