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For the past couple years, I have been saying that the states should send in possible safety issues to the main organizations so they can be looked at and evaluated.
The oil pan explosions that I've seen in the past decade are getting more and more violent. One of these days I'm afraid we are going to fry somebody. One of the things that could be implemented that I believe could save a life or lives. We should add additional a side panel to extend down to almost the bottom of the oil pans. Both sides I am going to try to do this with my tractor over this winter even though we really don't run my tractor that much anymore. I feel that we need to protect not only the fans but also anybody that needs to be working on the track. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how the best way to do this. Possibly they could be suspended from the top, just inside the frame rail and drop down. On the front and back of these panels on the bottom maybe a connection from side to side with a simple cable. If we can direct the spray pattern or flame directly towards the ground and not outward I will believe this would make a great improvement. I have no engineering degree and not saying this is going to work but I am just trying to protect people from getting hurt. |
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Basically, kudos to people which are making a step forward and starting to tell their safety concerns.
But especially this matter, risk of burn due to blown oil pans, is IMO a matter of third importance. And let me try to explain why. A while ago I started to put safety issues into categories, depending on the scale of consequencies, involved probability of occurance, etc. My typically categories are, regarding their importance, from top down: Cat A: spectators safety Cat B: staff safety Cat C: drivers safety Transfer your example case into my world, with a high probability of occurance as an cat C issue, with a low prob as an cat B topic. I would suggest to handle from sanctioning body perspective high cat matters (A&  with strictly tight requirements, to ensure a max level of safety for e.g. cat A target group (spectators).
Beside that, many cat B, and most cat C topics are fine to adress them via recommendations instead of hard requirements. Basically the only hard requirements for cat C are the ROP and the firesuit. It can be recommended to use a particular quality of firesuit, helmet (maybe vented?!), gloves, boots, neckbrace or HANS. Also to install in own interest extinguishing measures under the hood, an appropriate fire wall, a wider radius at the front axle skid bars, etc. And also to introduce measures that catch somehow the hot and fast gases of an oil pan explosion. We can discuss pros&cons of proposals for that, but I suggest to do this all only with the intention to consent for kinda recomm. A while ago elswere they dealed with side shielding on hooded tractors, depending on either in combination with sheet metal frame rails, or tube frame chassis. Leading to the result that it shall be permitted to use the frame rails in their geom location as a substitute for the intended sheet piece, but in case of a tube frame, the shielding must cover this region as well, either from inside (between engine block and chassis) or outside of the chassis. During that, several side notes have been introduced, regulating the aspects of how to attach, vertical and horizontal min span width etc. I remember that some people complained about the limited space at tube chassis, between engine block and frame, with all this lines, linkages, cabling etc, colliding with attachments of the shielding, or generally disturbing the accessibility of such components behind the shielding. |
