Brutuskend
Lifer
I was taking with a friend of mine today at work and explaining why modern automobiles have a closed cooling system. You know, the way the water overflows into a tank when the engine gets hot and then goes back into the radiator when it cools down.
Well that got me thinking about a trip I took the Arizona when I was stationed in So Cal while in the service back in the 70's.
At the time I owned a car exactly like this one, and one weekend a couple of friends and I decided to take a trip to Phoenix so we loaded up the car and set out.
Well we hadn't gotten too far when the car started over heating and pouring in more water didn't seem to help. We would drive a few more miles and it would just heat up again. So I figured the thermostat was possibly sticking. So I pulled over in some small town in the middle of the desert and pulled it out.
Well about 10 or 15 miles out side of town it over heated AGAIN. After popping the hood I found that due to my LEET mechanical skills at that time I had forgotten to tighten the hose clamp on the top radiator hose. 😱
Automotive tip #1: ALWAYS TIGHTEN ALL THE HOSE CLAMPS!
So, remember now, we were Marines, NOT boy scouts, so we didn't have our "Always be prepared" thing down very well. (No Water) But being Marines what we DID have was Lots of BEER! (You can probably see where this is going...)
Automotive tip #2: Beer is NOT a suitable substitute for water and or antifreeze. The engine will NOT cool down that much, but you WILL get a beer with ONE HELL of a head on it!
So now we are three hot, thirsty and stranded Marines. Not to mention SOBER! 🙁 (Before anyone says anything, the BEER was for my companions. I was not drinking. I didn't drink beer back then and I seldom drink beer now.)
After some time passed a good Samaritan stopped. We explained what the trouble was and being a nice guy he drove us back to the town we had just come from to get some water. Well when we got back to the car it wouldn't start.
Automotive tip #3: It takes more amps to turn a HOT starter than it does a cold one. If you have headers on your car and it sometimes doesn't want to start when it's hot remember this! The headers heat up the starter and then your battery doesn't have enough amps to turn it over.
So being a REAL nice guy, the good Samaritan agrees to give me a jump. (Remember now, in order to give me a jump our cars have to be nose to nose for the cables to reach.)
So he's turning his car around to get properly positioned which of course entails getting his car SIDEWAYS in the middle of the freeway. (You can probably see where this is going as well.) About this time along comes two cars racing down the freeway! One of these is a El Camino with a camper shell over the back.
BAM
The El Camino "T" bones the car that is trying to help me out! Busting ALL the glass out of the side of his car and pushing the fender of the El Camino into the tire rendering it un drivable. Remember how I said the El Camino had a camper shell on it? Well, laying in the back was a guy that had just been in a accident not too long before that and injured his back. Needless to say, this didn't help HIM out at all.
Fortunately, no one was killed or even seriously injured!
We waited for some time for the police to show up but after quite awhile the guy in the El Camino said screw it, and after we pulled his fender out of the tire, he took off.
Man I felt TERRIBLE. This guy stops to help some guys out and the next thing you know, his car is totaled. (I say totaled even though it was drivable because it was a old beat up piece of crap.) Eventually the cops DID show up but no tickets were even issued. And after awhile we all went our separate ways.
15 or 20 miles down the road and guess what? The car OVER HEATED AGAIN!
We spent the night sleeping in the car camped out side of a radiator shop.
The next morning the radiator shop sweat ed off the top on the radiator (Un soldered it) and rodded it out (running steel rods through the veins of the radiator to clean out accumulated crap!)
This brings us to.
Automotive tip #4: The reason they have sealed coolant systems on cars these days is to keep air out of the system. If air gets in there, rust starts forming on he inside of the engine block or any other steel parts it comes in contact with. (This includes freeze plugs which you defiantly don't want to rust!) Then little particles of rust break loose and plug up your radiator and this kind of crap happens! 😉
Hope you enjoyed the read and maybe even learned something in the process! 🙂
Well that got me thinking about a trip I took the Arizona when I was stationed in So Cal while in the service back in the 70's.
At the time I owned a car exactly like this one, and one weekend a couple of friends and I decided to take a trip to Phoenix so we loaded up the car and set out.
Well we hadn't gotten too far when the car started over heating and pouring in more water didn't seem to help. We would drive a few more miles and it would just heat up again. So I figured the thermostat was possibly sticking. So I pulled over in some small town in the middle of the desert and pulled it out.
Well about 10 or 15 miles out side of town it over heated AGAIN. After popping the hood I found that due to my LEET mechanical skills at that time I had forgotten to tighten the hose clamp on the top radiator hose. 😱
Automotive tip #1: ALWAYS TIGHTEN ALL THE HOSE CLAMPS!
So, remember now, we were Marines, NOT boy scouts, so we didn't have our "Always be prepared" thing down very well. (No Water) But being Marines what we DID have was Lots of BEER! (You can probably see where this is going...)
Automotive tip #2: Beer is NOT a suitable substitute for water and or antifreeze. The engine will NOT cool down that much, but you WILL get a beer with ONE HELL of a head on it!
So now we are three hot, thirsty and stranded Marines. Not to mention SOBER! 🙁 (Before anyone says anything, the BEER was for my companions. I was not drinking. I didn't drink beer back then and I seldom drink beer now.)
After some time passed a good Samaritan stopped. We explained what the trouble was and being a nice guy he drove us back to the town we had just come from to get some water. Well when we got back to the car it wouldn't start.
Automotive tip #3: It takes more amps to turn a HOT starter than it does a cold one. If you have headers on your car and it sometimes doesn't want to start when it's hot remember this! The headers heat up the starter and then your battery doesn't have enough amps to turn it over.
So being a REAL nice guy, the good Samaritan agrees to give me a jump. (Remember now, in order to give me a jump our cars have to be nose to nose for the cables to reach.)
So he's turning his car around to get properly positioned which of course entails getting his car SIDEWAYS in the middle of the freeway. (You can probably see where this is going as well.) About this time along comes two cars racing down the freeway! One of these is a El Camino with a camper shell over the back.
BAM
The El Camino "T" bones the car that is trying to help me out! Busting ALL the glass out of the side of his car and pushing the fender of the El Camino into the tire rendering it un drivable. Remember how I said the El Camino had a camper shell on it? Well, laying in the back was a guy that had just been in a accident not too long before that and injured his back. Needless to say, this didn't help HIM out at all.
Fortunately, no one was killed or even seriously injured!
We waited for some time for the police to show up but after quite awhile the guy in the El Camino said screw it, and after we pulled his fender out of the tire, he took off.
Man I felt TERRIBLE. This guy stops to help some guys out and the next thing you know, his car is totaled. (I say totaled even though it was drivable because it was a old beat up piece of crap.) Eventually the cops DID show up but no tickets were even issued. And after awhile we all went our separate ways.
15 or 20 miles down the road and guess what? The car OVER HEATED AGAIN!
We spent the night sleeping in the car camped out side of a radiator shop.
The next morning the radiator shop sweat ed off the top on the radiator (Un soldered it) and rodded it out (running steel rods through the veins of the radiator to clean out accumulated crap!)
This brings us to.
Automotive tip #4: The reason they have sealed coolant systems on cars these days is to keep air out of the system. If air gets in there, rust starts forming on he inside of the engine block or any other steel parts it comes in contact with. (This includes freeze plugs which you defiantly don't want to rust!) Then little particles of rust break loose and plug up your radiator and this kind of crap happens! 😉
Hope you enjoyed the read and maybe even learned something in the process! 🙂
