I was about 1 minute into my second yard of the day on my 2 year old Ferris is3200 (37hp efi vanguard) when I started smelling burning pcb/epoxy, looked behind me and saw smoke billowing up from my engine.
Jumped off quick and saw it was coming from the voltage regulator along with flames blowing out of it through a hole burnt in the epoxy waterproofing. I shut the engine off right away but the flames and smoke just continued increasing so I ran to my truck and grabbed a wrench and disconnected the battery. Untill I got the battery disconnected it showed no sign that it was going to stop and I was seriously concerned it could burn up my whole mower since I was not close enough to the house to get a water hose to it.
Fortunately I got the battery disconnected in time but obviously the voltage regulator has ground to the frame and a direct unfused connection to the positive side of the battery via the starter so it must have somehow developed a dead short under the epoxy.
My question is why would they not put a fuse inline there somewhere considering it's a real fire hazard if it fails like mine did, what if that happened while it was parked in my barn at night?? As far as I can tell it would have set my whole machine on fire if I hadn't been able to get the battery disconnected quick.
Dealer had a replacement in stock so I was back to work 2 hours later but pretty nerve racking experience.
Jumped off quick and saw it was coming from the voltage regulator along with flames blowing out of it through a hole burnt in the epoxy waterproofing. I shut the engine off right away but the flames and smoke just continued increasing so I ran to my truck and grabbed a wrench and disconnected the battery. Untill I got the battery disconnected it showed no sign that it was going to stop and I was seriously concerned it could burn up my whole mower since I was not close enough to the house to get a water hose to it.
Fortunately I got the battery disconnected in time but obviously the voltage regulator has ground to the frame and a direct unfused connection to the positive side of the battery via the starter so it must have somehow developed a dead short under the epoxy.
My question is why would they not put a fuse inline there somewhere considering it's a real fire hazard if it fails like mine did, what if that happened while it was parked in my barn at night?? As far as I can tell it would have set my whole machine on fire if I hadn't been able to get the battery disconnected quick.
Dealer had a replacement in stock so I was back to work 2 hours later but pretty nerve racking experience.
