Bull_D

Unfortunately, I have been a bit covered up with work and some family health issues. As a result, the last time I sat in my SPB was June 4th. I was working on the car over the weekend, when I went to the basement on Sunday morning I noticed an area that looked like a liquid had leaked onto the floor but dried up. Upon further investigation, it originated under the car. I removed the plastic under tray from below the engine....lots of liquid poured off it. Did not smell or feel like coolant. Seemed almost lightly "soapy". I could not find ANY evidence of leaking off of any part of the block, coolant lines, etc.... Started the car to see if pressuring the coolant system produced any leaking. Nothing. Ran the car up the block, as I pulled away, I noticed a collection of water in the passenger side of car. Back to the basement....fire bottle in the red. Confirmed as the culprit. Arm switch for system off.
My question.....anyone else with a similar experience? Why, with the car on jack stands for 6 weeks, would it randomly shoot its wad? Recommendations for refill service? Any other comments?
Thanks

Coochas

Do you have kids or pets that could have hit the E button? Just saying.

jlanka

same thing happened to me on Thursday but this was on the track at Lime Rock. No touching of the button was done, just suddenly decided to shoot it's wad while on the track. Wondering if some kind of wiring short may have been the culprit.

Jeff

nxfedlt1

what brands were you all using? I assume electronic activation and not the manual pull cable?

We started installing these in our vehicles in Iraq in 06 after a few nasty fires and all were electronic based firing systems with halon, and we probably had 1/3 of the systems fire randomly over the course of 18 months.....makes for interesting times driving down the road at 40+ and suddenly being inundated by the stuff.

morsini

The steel bottles have a finite lifetime. Did it leak out?

Carrera51

What brand of system is it? Soapy water like substance sounds like AFFF. Are there puddles under all the nozzle locations?

Bull_D

electric activated. spa technique. foam dribble out of nozzles. no doubt the source of the puddles. no kids, no dog. first wife 18 months ago. i'm 54. almost made it to the finish line
after she took out the audi motor running over a "tennis ball" sized rock, she is banished from the man cave

Carrera51

Bull_D:
When was the last time the bottle was serviced? There should be a label on the bottle that shows the date it was charged, and the date it's due for service. Was there any material on the seats or other areas where the nozzles are pointed. The last time I saw a case where the AFFF did not come out with much force was on a friends car. I started at the bottle and worked my way back checking the lines for kinks. Did go far from where the line goes into the bottle to and discovered that one of the lines had gotten kinked probably during the install. The kink was behind one of the brackets that secured the hose to the tunnel. Fortunately there was enough slack in the line that I was able to clip the line and then reconnect to the bottle.

If you need a place to service it, we are an authorized SPA service center and can handle that for you. If you would prefer somewhere closer, SPA has other distributors who service them. Their dealer listing page can be found here: http://www.spatechnique.com/dealers/

If you have any questions, please give us a call at 1-800-934-9112 or PM me at your convenience.

Kind regards,

Bull_D

bottle was a year old. i ran down all the lines, no kinks. the bottle dribbled out of all 4 nozzles in the car. the oddest thing is it did it some in june, but did not empty the bottle, and then again last weekend it fully discharged. there was no material sprayed onto the seats or engine bay. it just dribbled into puddles. i am sending directly back to spa technique. there is something going on with the system.

Carrera51

Bull_D:
This does sound strange. Right move to send back to SPA. Wonder if there was a defect in the firing head. It should not lose pressure or discharge unless it is fired.

In the future when the car is sitting between track events, you should disconnect the power lead from the head. The power wire that goes from the head to the power pack. I've done this in the past and left myself a note taped to the steering wheel reminding me to reconnect before use.

Kind regards,

jlanka

same symptoms with mine.

LuigiVampa

You just described prom night many years ago.

Carrera51

^^^ Very funny! I nearly spit my Pepsi on my keyboard!

Veloce Raptor

/thread

Bull_D

somehow, i knew the terms "took a crap" and "dribble" would come back to haunt this thread.....