Topic: Pumping gas with engine running

[dave500]

mate of mine had an old falcon that somehow gave the first person who got out a pretty good shock,he always let someone get out first,car never blew up.

[ekpent]

 My wife owned a first gen Chevy Trailblazer that was a major 'shocker' We would kid about getting shocked while getting out and she claimed she could hear it crackle !

[RAFster122s]

Was it a TV network or Myth Busters who put a model  rocket ignitor in the opening of a gas tank years ago and got busted for falsely reporting some danger of gas tank explosions and slow mo zoomed in video showed their trickery to support the story they were trying to claim?

Vapor in enclosed space is a problem if it mixes to right concentration ... dropping a match into a gas can doesn't cause it to explode unless the vapor has enough oxygen to be an explosive mixture...
 

[Kevin D]

Not gasoline, not a car, but related:
 At work, there was an event: an explosion occurred inside a 55 gallon drum while filling it with oil. It ballooned the drum, shot a flame out the bunghole 15 feet in the air, and singed the eyebrows of the crewman standing by.
 The 400 gallons of oil was being moved from a piece of failed power equipment. The arcing decomposed the oil and filled it with beaucoup combustible gas including acetylene, methane, ethane…… The drum was splash filled, not bottom filled with a standpipe, so the gases were freed upon entry. The 1” hose used did not have an internal wire for grounding/stiffening, like it’s supposed to. The drum didn’t have a ground wire either…. And the oil was filtered on its trip from the failed equipment to the drum. There is lots of friction between the moving oil and the filter increasing static charge on the oil.
 It was hard to believe, I had never heard about or seen anything like that, and neither had anybody else. Much reading followed and I found a couple similar incident reports from the 50’s, and ASTM? standards for tanker filling and unloading including grounded equipment to dissipate static charges.
 Is there a lesson here, I don’t know. Be careful, not casual.

For motorcycle filling I’d be concerned about overfills getting to a hot engine/exhaust. I always have two hands on the pump handle, eyes in the tank hole, finish fill as slow as possible till level touches the bottom of the neck.
Edit: I forgot to say I keep the pump nozzle against the tank neck when filling the CB.

[jlh3rd]

A little dated but interesting none the less: A report from Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB)

http://www.esdjournal.com/static/Static_Fires.pdf

A review of the literature revealed that, between 1993 and 2004, there were 243 reported
incidents of fires breaking out at petrol stations around the world. Although the fires were
claimed to be caused by exploding mobile phones, experts have subsequently revealed that
not one of the incidents was associated with telecommunication equipment. Instead, many of
the fires were ignited by the discharge of static electricity from the human body.


The American Petroleum Institute in the article "Staying Safe at the Pump" says nothing about cell phones but they do mention turning off the engine and avoiding static: https://www.api.org/oil-and-natural-gas/consumer-information/consumer-resources/staying-safe-pump

Here are additional consumer refueling safety guidelines that will help keep you and your family safe when refueling your vehicle or filling up gasoline storage containers:
Turn off your vehicle engine. Put your vehicle in park and/or set the emergency brake. Disable or turn off any auxiliary sources of ignition such as a camper or trailer heater, cooking units, or pilot lights.
Do not smoke, light matches or lighters while refueling at the pump or when using gasoline anywhere else.
Use only the refueling latch provided on the gasoline dispenser nozzle. Never jam the refueling latch on the nozzle open.
Do not re-enter your vehicle during refueling. If you cannot avoid re-entering your vehicle, discharge any static build-up BEFORE reaching for the nozzle by touching something metal with a bare hand -- such as the vehicle door -- away from the nozzle.)

Cheers

Although I don't recall any incidents, I fueled aircraft at the commercial airport in the 70's working my way through college.
The first and last thing we did was connect and disconnect the "static" line from the fuel truck to the grounding rod in the apron.

[Don R]

 I remember seeing static discharge straps for cars on sale, they hung under the car and drug on the ground. They had a lightning bolt logo on one side. I'm not sure what they were made of.

[Don R]

https://www.amazon.com/Static-Strip-Ground-Vehicle-Driving/dp/B08CXPMQLT/ref=asc_df_B08CXPMQLT?tag=bingshoppinga-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=80264463741084&hvnetw=o&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-4583863993081291&th=1

[dave500]

i believe those were meant for car sickness in the day?

[jlh3rd]

that's what I always remembered about those ads....J C Whitney...

[Dunk]

I always turn my stuff off. The only four wheeled vehicle I drive the past few years is a diesel pickup though. I'd probably leave it running in the winter if not for the parking brake always failing within a year or replacing parts, every time. Easier to turn it off and put it in gear than drop a block of wood behind the tire. Granted, with 57 gallons capacity I only fill it every few months. Either way, I think it's an exceedingly rare case for gasoline to ignite while fueling. Gas is actually very difficult to light.

[HondaMan]

There was one time my old man tried to fill the tank with the motor running.
Something about the fuel system on that truck caused the gas to back flow. 
More gas went on the ground than into the tank
Still don't fully understand how the pump pressure would cause that.
But it did.  And the clear coat below the filler door got messed up from it.
I had just done some dent repair there too. 
Was not pleased with my dads stubbornness that day.

His pressure-relief PCV valve in the EFI system wasn't working right, This was real common in the 1990-2005 cars and would 'pop' at the gas cap when opening it, and pump fuel out if the pump and engine was running and more than 1/3-ish tank full.

[HondaMan]

Gas is actually very difficult to light.

I didn't believe this until one day a guy came to my bike shop and demonstrated something I still don't quite "get" from that day.
He put some gas in a pail (about a pint in a 1.5 gallon bucket) and threw a lit match into it: the match just went out! Then he threw a lit cigarette in, and it burst into flame. He was a chemistry teacher at the college where I went then. What he explained was something like, "The active flame burns off the aerated fumes on its way into the fuel, using up the oxygen before the match hits the gas. Then the gas can't light. But throwing the lit cigarette in only burns off SOME of the oxygen, so there is enough left to let the gas catch fire and burn."

Poppycock?

But, I can't repeat what he did. Whether a match or a cigarette, I never could repeat it: both always lit the gas when I've tried it. It was about 85 degrees and that much humidity that day, if it matters..

Thoughts? Experiences?

[jlh3rd]

eh...way back when (70's), I heard it's not the gas that burns , but the fumes and that you could throw gas on a lit cigarette and put it out.....so I did...and it did.....I never tried the reverse.

[Don R]

 A friend tried to start a bonfire with biodiesel, it would not light even on formerly dry leaves. Once a fire was established it burned fine. I've witnessed fools lighting things with splashed gas too, that's never a good idea.
 Another guy invited us to a weenie roast. We could see the smoke column 20 miles away. I joked that must be the weenie roast. Sadly, it was. Several trees in a ditch and he forgot about the tires under them. We roasted no weenies that day or night. You couldn't get close enough.

[seanbarney41]

eh...way back when (70's), I heard it's not the gas that burns , but the fumes and that you could throw gas on a lit cigarette and put it out.....so I did...and it did.....I never tried the reverse.

+1...I think you got the story flip flopped and, yes I have done this experiment.  Lit cigarette is extinguiished by the gas.  A burrming match will ignite it.  If you use the nasty old gas that came out of the sittin around for 25 years tank we are usually dealing with it will extinguish both.