[AT] Gas can rant ( flaming vacuum cleaners)

[charlie hill]

This one shows a lot of different vacs with varied results but at about the 
8 min
mark until the end they get a 3 min. plus burn out of an Electrolux. 
Looking at the
results makes me think they need to put a burn nozzle on the exhaust end and 
add an
igniter of some sort.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzCInxrVewU

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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