[AT] Gas can rant ( flaming vacuum cleaners)

charlie hill charliehill at embarqmail.com
Wed Jul 22 14:44:58 PDT 2015


Here you go guys:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj5M-nHIKXM

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Richard Walker 
Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2015 3:14 PM 
To: Antique tractor email discussion group 
Subject: Re: [AT] Gas can rant ( flaming vacuum cleaners) 

I have this vague memory of an old thread back in the '90's when ATIS 
was still Forsyth County.  I think someone's post mentioned sucking gas 
through old Electroluxes just for the heck of it, after participants had 
downed a few beers.  Or maybe am I thinking of another list.  Anyway, 
here's what googling turned up just now. -  Richard

****************************************

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://clubs.hemmings.com/nvce/VacuumCleanerContest.html

COMPLETE ARTICLE:  This is a section from Dave Barry's Complete Guide to 
Guys:

This is why I believe that Nobel Peace Prize Handing Out Committee 
should consider giving a large cash award to the guys belonging to the 
Chicagoland Corvair Enthusiasts club, for their pioneering efforts in 
the area of  making vacuum cleaners explode.

I am not making up these efforts: I have personally viewed them on a 
wonderful videotape that was sent to me by Larry Claypool and Kirk 
Parro, who are members of the Chicagoland Corvair Enthusiasts.

(Perhaps you are thinking that people who are enthusiastic, in an 
organized way, about Corvairs are perhaps - to use a psychological term 
- several drawers shy of a file cabinet.  Let me assure you that you are 
correct.)

Here's the background: One day Claypool and Parro were reading a 
publication called Corsa Communique, which is the official magazine of 
the Corvair Society of America, and they came across an article headlined:

VACUUM CLEANERS AND SIPHONS DON'T MIX

The article was written by a person named Chess Earman, who recounted 
what happened once when he was trying to siphon the gasoline out of one 
of his four Corvairs.  He didn't want to get gasoline in his mouth, so 
he decided to get the suction going by holding the end of the siphon 
hose up against a vacuum cleaner hose.  What this meant, of course, is 
that he was sucking gas fumes directly into an electric motor, which as 
you know operates by having sparks fly around inside it.  So the next 
thing Chess Earman knew, there was an explosion inside the vacuum 
cleaner, and fire was coming out of the back of it "like a jet engine."

Fortunately Earman was able to unplug the vacuum cleaner before anything 
really bad happened.  But this was indeed a chilling cautionary story 
about the extreme danger of messing around with gasoline and vacuum 
cleaners, and when Larry Claypool and Kirk Parro read it their natural 
reaction, as guys, was : Hey, cool.

"Such a challange must not go unmet." is how they put it in a letter to me.

And thus it came to pass that, for a number of years during the 1980s, 
the big attraction at the annual Fourth of July picnic of the 
Chicagoland Corvair Enthusiasts was the Flaming Vacuum Cleaner 
competition.  I wish you could see the videotape, because it is 
difficult for me, using mere words, to convey the full flavor of the 
event.  But I will try.

Each year, contestants brought vacuum cleaners, which were grouped into 
teams under signs denoting their brands (TEAM HOOVER, TEAM ELECTROLUX, 
etc.).  One by one, these vacuum cleaners were brought out into the 
competition arena where they were introduced by an announcer over the 
public-address system. The vacuum cleaner nozzle would be placed in a 
shallow pan of gasoline.  Then everybody would retreat to a safe 
distance, and the vacuum cleaner would be plugged in to a power source, 
causing the motor to start so the gasoline was being sucked in through 
the nozzle.

Usually nothing happened for a few seconds: then there'd usually be a 
BANG and the vacuum cleaner would jump a few inches into the air.  This 
always got a cheer from the crowd.  Various things would happen next, 
depending on the vacuum cleaner,. Some models would emit a cloud of 
black smoke and stop running, causing the crowd to boo.  But other 
models would send out a jet flame shooting several feet out the back for 
several seconds.  A few hardy models kept running for several minutes: 
the longer they'd run the more the crowd would cheer, encouraged by the 
announcer.  Sometimes the flames would stop and inevitably you'd hear 
somebody - it always sounded like the same guy, a guy who has been 
drinking a lot of beer - shout "MORE GAS!" Certain canister models - 
these were the most popular with the crowd, getting wild cheers of 
approval - would explode violently apart with the tops flying up and out 
of the camera's range of view.

"The canister tops often exceeded altitudes of thirty feet." report 
Claypool and Parro.

After each contestant was finished, it would be dragged off and dumped 
onto a growing, smoking mound of charred and mangled machinery, and the 
announcer would say something nice about it, such as, "Not bad, 
Electrolux Number Two!" or "Let's hear it for the Eureka!"

On tape, between contestants, you occasionally see women walk past in 
front of the camera, on their way to get some more potato salad or 
something: they sometimes look at the guys, who are working 
industriously away the way guys do when they're on a Mission, getting 
another vacuum cleaner ready for action, and the women shake their heads 
in such a way as to clearly indicate that, yes, they knew guys could be 
idiots, but they had never realized that guys could be idiots of this 
magnitude.

Again, these women did not understand that the Flaming Vacuum Cleaner 
competition was, in fact, a relatively positive activity for guys to 
engage in - that if the guys didn't have this outlet, they could easily 
become involved in something with far more serious consequences.  I am 
sure that none of us wants to pick up our morning newspaper and read the 
headline that says CHICAGO FEARED VAPORIZED IN MISHAP INVOLVING 
EXPERIMENTAL NUCLEAR-POWERED CORVAIR.

No, the Flaming Vacuum Cleaner competition was probably a good thing.  I 
want to stress, however, that it was also a very dangerous thing, not to 
be attempted by amateurs.  Remember that the guys who did it were not 
ordinary, untrained civilians: They were Corvair enthusiasts.  And they 
took certain critical safety precautions, such as rigging up a public 
address system.  You must remember that gasoline and vacuum cleaners do 
not mix, and under no circumstances should you attempt to do anything 
like this yourself.  And if you do, please let me know where you are.
Flaming Vacuum Cleaner competition


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