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In the 90's, my father had a Ford Pampa. We lived in Rondônia, close the extreme west of the Amazon rainforest. One day, while raining and riding through diffic
by marcodiego 5y ago
In the 90's, my father had a Ford Pampa. We lived in Rondônia, close the extreme west of the Amazon rainforest. One day, while raining and riding through difficult terrain, the car stopped just by the top of a slope. My father quickly diagnosed the fuel hose had ruptured. By luck and opportunity, he was a physicist, the trunk was full of material from experiments and research he was running at the time. He got a hose from one of his experiments on the trunk, connected it directly to the engine fuel inlet, the other point of the hose came directly to the cabin inside a bottle we filled with alcohol from the fuel tank.
That was it, the bottle was now our fuel tank. Dangerous, but worked perfectly. We had to stop at every gas station we found and refill without stopping the engine to prevent air entering the hose.
It was a fun day.
- mountainboy 5y agoalcohol in the fuel tank?
- CapitalistCartr 5y agoSugar (and hence alcohol fuel) is cheap and plentiful in Brazil. It competes with gasoline. So dual fuel vehicles are common.
- marcodiego 5y agoYes. Cars powered by alcohol were common in Brazil. There was a government program with tax incentives, this helped us to become less dependent on external prices for petrol helping control inflation. Also, on less developed regions, utility cars - Pampa was a pickup - also had tax incentives as a way to promote development of the region. Of course, there was a law that prevented you from selling your utility car to other regions of the country. This made an alcohol powered utility vehicle very attractive for the region at the time. It was probably the cheapest pickup one could buy.
- 01acheru 5y agoWhat a memory, my grandfather’s Santana! If it was a little cold it would never start on the first try… Thanks for bringing this back :)
- marcodiego 5y agoThose are not exactly good memories. Starting an engine should not require sensibility, skills and know a few incantations to convince the engine.
- 01acheru 5y agoI was a child so it always seemed funny to me. My uncle trying to make it start, failing, “No it is not like that, step out let me do it”, then my grandfather tried, nothing, a little push, a little mumbojumbo, try again… it was a magic ritual!
- progman32 5y agoI once ran my car's electrical system from my electric skateboard's batteries when my alternator failed, but your story wins.
- aivisol 5y agoDone this with my dad's Lada. Fuel hose ruptured (rusted through?) in the middle of nowhere and I installed a hose directly from engine inlet (the car had fuel pump mounted on the side of engine powered by crankshaft) running through the firewall right to the small fuel container sitting just on the floor under my legs. It worked and got me home. Please never ever try to repeat it.
- lsferreira42 5y agoFellow Brazilian here, my father once used no-break batteries to start our car and i think that was amazing, but your father wins the prize!