How does (radiator) Stop-Leak work?!!? Is it voodoo?

[edprush]

How does (radiator) Stop-Leak work?!!?

My friend's radiator was leaking. He poured Stop-Leak into it. It no longer leaks!

How does this miracle wonder work?

 

[edprush]

^

 

[Pepsi90919]

Yes, it's voodoo.

Voodoo (Godsmack)

 

[Mark R]

It's got some resiny type stuff in it that sets when exposed to oxygen (from the air). This is meant to prevent it from setting in the circuit, and only set where there is access to the atmosphere i.e. in a leak.

Only problem with this sort of approach is that if there are air bubbles in your cooling circuit, the stuff can set within the circuit and block the minute water channels which permeate the engine block.

 

[yakko]

Voodoo all the way.

Voodoo Child(Voodoo Child)

 

[apoppin]

Good for real emergencies only. And NEVER for a rotary engine.

Voodoo that is - don't use 'stop leak'.


Under My Voodoo (Sublime)

 

[geno]

<< And NEVER for a rotary engine. >>


Why's that? Just curious - what type of damage does it do? Heheh, I'm just dying to hear something really bad >=)

 

[yakko]

If you are dying to hear something really bad do it yourself.

Voodoo(Body Count)

 

[geno]

I don't have a rotary engine though =(

Feel free to donate a RX-7 to me though since they have Wankels ;[/b]P
I guess they'd make a good test specimen (yea right)

 

[yakko]

<< I guess they'd make a good test specimen (yea right) >>


Those motors are quite impressive once you realize the amount of power to displacment along with a truly unique design.

Voodoo(Chris Isaak)

 

[eia430]

How does radiator stop leak work? well it has particulates in it that gets suspended in the coolant (hence the instruction to run motor for 15min + after you put it in. When these particulates start coming out of a leak they &quot;bunch up&quot; if you will kind of like a log jam. Any hole within a certain size and smaller will be plugged. Hope this helped.

 

[yakko]

eia430,

Good description. Unfortunately this is also why the engines themselves get blocked up.


Voodoo(Rusted Root)

 

[Soybomb]

Yeah stopleak is only good in a really big emergency. Not only will it help to clog up the water pasages in your engine, but its not too uncommong for your heater core to clog too!

 

[apoppin]

The rotary engines have many very small water passages. Once it is clogged up with stop leak - even once - it will run hot. Then you have to rebuild the engine and clean out the gunk.

I know from (sad) personal experience with my 13B rotarys (2 - 1976 Mazda Cosmos). Fortunately they are really easy to rebuild.

Rotary power is awsome. The 13B - 1.3 L engine - can easily be built to about 300 hp without turbocharging. Redline is just under 11,000.


Voodoo (Godsmack)

 

[geno]

<< The 13B - 1.3 L engine - can easily be built to about 300 hp without turbocharging. Redline is just under 11,000. >>


!!!!
Wow!







How do they do for torque?

 

[ElFenix]

i wish the gov't hadn't put in those clean air regs or made some sort of loophole for rotary development. you can build one that ran really clean, its just that development wasn't very far along and the gov't regs pretty much killed any project. damn great design, very little wasted motion.

 

[DesignDawg]

Genocide...

TERRIBLE for torque....but it doesn't really matter. The power is there when you need it. I have driven several (friends with RX7s), and I always wondered why they felt so fast when my friends drove them, and slower than my FORD ESCORT when I did! --The reason was, I was lugging them. They have low torque, so at low RPM, they have terrible get-up, but when you punch it past about 5,000, it's a real kick in the ass!
The experience of driving an RX7 is more like driving a sportbike than a big fatboy harley. When you're driving in-town, you don't really feel like you're having to restrain the car from taking off, as it would only do it if you gave it room to get up to a decent RPM.

Ricky
DesignDawg

 

[yakko]

ElFenix and genocide,

Have you ever seen the original rotary enginge that crazy german Wankel came up with? It was capable of 25000rpms. The only real flaw was that you had to disassemble the whole engine to change the plugs.


Voodoo Voodoo(Zucchero)