[ssengo]

I have placed a set of Roots Vibrasonic horns fitted inside the bonnet few inches from the battery (5 inches approx). During honking, will the impact of the sound from the horn affect the battery in any way due to vibrations caused by the horn? Sorry if this sounds odd. Help needed.

[GTO]

+1 to what Danlanan posted. After-market electrical installs are the primary reason for cars catching fire. What makes it worse is the unskilled / untrained labour. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen a 14 year old "pappu" installing a stereo in a brand new sedan at local accessory shops.

Originally Posted by ssengo

During honking, will the impact of the sound from the horn affect the battery in any way due to vibrations caused by the horn? Sorry if this sounds odd. Help needed.

Give the Exides & Amarons of the world more credit, will ya . Batteries are built to withstand the harshest of conditions (temperature, vibration etc.). The vibration from your horn is puff cake compared to what will happen when you hit a pothole at speed.

[ssengo]

Thanks GTO for the quick turnaround. I was so nervous about having installed the horns next to my battery. Now i'm comfortable with your solution. Thanks again.

[Hashim]

My M1000 is fitted with LPG and 130/100 philips rally bulbs with dual relay and ceramic holders. No problem yet. Yesterday while coming home back I found engine was not running smooth and giving jerk, I switched to petrol then stopped to see whats wrong, to my surprise the pipe going into the LPG evaporator was leaking with pressure and there was ice formation on bonnet. Its a day incident so cannot say car would have caught fire if headlights were ON but engine and exhaust pipes were itself very hot, so unless there is no spark, there is no fire.

[harsha.cs1]

Originally Posted by Hashim

My M1000 is fitted with LPG and 130/100 philips rally bulbs with dual relay and ceramic holders. No problem yet. Yesterday while coming home back I found engine was not running smooth and giving jerk, I switched to petrol then stopped to see whats wrong, to my surprise the pipe going into the LPG evaporator was leaking with pressure and there was ice formation on bonnet. Its a day incident so cannot say car would have caught fire if headlights were ON but engine and exhaust pipes were itself very hot, so unless there is no spark, there is no fire.

Thanks Hashim, for sharing your experience. I hope you have fixed the leak. it must have been a very scary experience for sure. any sparking anywhere could have caused havoc, to say the least. dual relay means a relay for each headlamp? i wonder if my roots kit has a dual or a single relay.

[Hashim]

Yes dual relay means one relay for one headlight bulb. Actually I modified the original single relay headlight wiring harness to have separate relay for each bulb as I could not find dual at that time which can take load of both bulbs at high beam (130+130=260W) and single relay was rated at 200w max.

[ssengo]

Originally Posted by Hashim

My M1000 is fitted with LPG and 130/100 philips rally bulbs with dual relay and ceramic holders. No problem yet. Yesterday while coming home back I found engine was not running smooth and giving jerk, I switched to petrol then stopped to see whats wrong, to my surprise the pipe going into the LPG evaporator was leaking with pressure and there was ice formation on bonnet. Its a day incident so cannot say car would have caught fire if headlights were ON but engine and exhaust pipes were itself very hot, so unless there is no spark, there is no fire.

You are very lucky to survive this. Did you check the temperature gauge at the time of incident? Hopefully you were not running with headlamps ON. Else it might have started a fire and using separate relays for hadlamps should be very powerful. Lucky

[sudharma]

Originally Posted by Hashim

My M1000 is fitted with LPG and 130/100 philips rally bulbs with dual relay and ceramic holders. No problem yet. Yesterday while coming home back I found engine was not running smooth and giving jerk, I switched to petrol then stopped to see whats wrong, to my surprise the pipe going into the LPG evaporator was leaking with pressure and there was ice formation on bonnet. Its a day incident so cannot say car would have caught fire if headlights were ON but engine and exhaust pipes were itself very hot, so unless there is no spark, there is no fire.

Mostly the additional items installed in the engine bay are the solenoids for the Gas system, Horns+ relays, and of course the High wattage lamps + relays. The relay contacts sparks every time they are operated. If the relay is not a good quality sealed type then this relay operation could causea fire if there is a gas leak.The Alternator/Dynamo and Radiator fans have brushes and these will spark while running. Also any substandard wiring and spliced and taped joints could cause sparks.
One should take into consideration all these factors. Also fuel lines of rubber worsens the situation in case of a fire.

Please remember that most of the fire accidents reported are in the gas fueled vehicles.

[sudharma]

Originally Posted by harsha.cs1

Thanks Satish and Ssengo,
The Hyundai auto electrician told me no major issues in trying 130/100 but it might darken the headlight assembly. But still why take a chance types. I guess i will stick on with 100/90 as i am happy with it for now. and the car being 9 years old, i am sure it is out of its youth and wont be too happy with these experiments.
off topic, Satish, i saw your work with your motorbikes and your interest in them. I am really impressed!

Harsha,
Thanks for the compliment.
Sathish

[sudharma]

Recently 2 Tata Nanos were reportedly caught fire. One while parked and the other while on the move. Fortunately no one was injured. There was also a photograph of the car burning while on the move.

As the Nano is a brand new vehicle and the produced number of vehicles are not many, I wonder if there is an inherent manufacturing defect in the vehicle.

[Sankar]

Electrical wiring faults could be the No1 cause in vehicle fires. It doesn't matter if you have ZERO accessories installed from aftermarket shops, one badly installed genuine accessory from the Authorised Dealer is enough to get your car catch on fire!! And yesterday i realised that i've been very lucky!!

My car is AStar VXi and around an year back i had MGA fog lamps installed in my car from Popular MASS, Killipalam -TVM. The job done was okayish, after the install i had to organise the wires under the hood with some cable ties and after that it was left at it as everything looked fine under the hood.

Couple of days back i bought a ZXi tachometer and i was looking at ways to install it so in the process i had to look under the dashboard to find any connection points for the tacho. I didn't find any connection points but instead there was a surprise for me! There was a wire hanging down with a bullet connector joint and with the plastic cladding over the bullet connector missing and with brass connector exposed I traced the wire to the MGA fog lamp switch on the dash. It is a not a ground wire.

I taped the exposed connector with good quality electrical tape saving my car (and me) from an electrical short circuit.

Its been over an year since i got that fog lamp kit installed and now there is no point in going back to Popular and shouting at them. But i will bring it to notice the next time i go there.

So even if your car has been handled only at the Dealer Service point and installed with only the company approved accessories there is no guarantee on the quality of the work. In this case the wire was hanging down under the dash, and at a distance from other metallic parts and probably that is how my car got saved.