One of the biggest frights I had in Will'e was the day he caught on fire. I had been in Taupo paddling for a friend swimming across the lake. I had planned to drive back to Papmoa for the weekend stopping off in Rotorua for some parts at the VW shop.
This is a two hour drive.
About twenty minutes out of Rotorua Will'e gave a little miss and I noticed a petrol smell. He purred on so I thought little of it and drove on.
As I arrived in Rotorua I got another smell of gas.As I turned into Riri Street. I was thinking about this as motored past the VW yard. I realised this and slowed to do a u turn.
Will'e missed then stalled in the middle of the road.
I sat there turning the key pumping the pedal. Suddenly I heard someone yelling. As I turned to see what the noise was I was greeted with smoke and flames leaping out of the back at the engine. Lucky the guy was racing over with a fire extinguisher, he quickly dealt with the engine area while I turned the key off and disconnected the battery.
What luck I had just driven nearly 100 kms through lonely country roads and this happened outside a workshop
100 m up the road from the Vw Yard.
The guy at the yard was just shutting up for the weekend as Will'e rolled in. He was good enough to organise wires, leads, new fuel line and other bits needed to get mobile. I was back on the road that afternoon. With the other parts required to get me to Papamoa.
The odd thing was that I had fuelled up with the then new
Lead free gas for the first time that week. The fuel line had been fine until then. |
