Well I certainly wouldn't pour salt water over my car! I take it Richard doesn't like his car very much? ;-) As for hot water, I've been pouring water straight from my hot tap over my cars for over 30 years now and have never suffered a cracked screen.
Obviously not a good idea if you have a pre-existing crack or chip.
Tim
which is why I said that petrols warm quicker than diesels.
One of the parts of my service schedule is to check the engine fan operates, this is often quite difficult to get going on modern diesels, unless the day is really hot the fan won't come in even when left idling for half an hour or so after a run.
It's the sudden difference in temperature that cracks glass, i.e. from freezing to very hot instantly. Driving through a puddle in the summer is by no means a fair comparison.
On Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:28:44 GMT, "Mrcheerful" wrote: d
At one time some folk put a piece of card in front of part of the rad to get it to heat up more quickly ....Is that still done or is it not recommended ....even in this weather ?
I see about one car a year doing that nowadays, might be more common in very rural areas. In general cars are so much more well designed in cooling and heating areas that it is not really necessary any more.
It's an exactly similar comparison, 0deg to 30 deg & 40C to 10C are essentially the same, only Autoglasses advertising would scare you into thinking otherwise. Fords fastclear screens would be shattering continuously if it was a significant issue.
Auxilary heated diesels are even quicker though. When they work :-)
common sense is not allowed;-)
Thermostats have impoved in the last 40 years :-)
I did that on our old Rover 218SD during a cold snap a couple of years back. I think it helped but coincidentally or otherwise a hose split (over oil filter) and we lost all the coolant (I knew something was wrong when the heater went from warm to freezing).
Unable to make a repair (crimped hose clip) I pottered the 20 miles home using the temperature gauge as load limiter and found I could average about 50 mph. ;-)
Didn't seem to do it any harm as now on 200,000 miles it just took us up to Scotland and back. Heater was still pretty cold though and now it seems to be worse on one side so I guess the heater matrix and other bits could do with a flush through?
From elsewhere in this thread, *our* kitcar does have a real heater and whilst it works the bearings have gone on the fan and it makes a right racket. Anyone know how to re-bearing 1978 MkII Escort heaters please ... ?
Cheers, T i m
Thanks for that.
Whilst it may fit or could be made to fit I think 'heaters' and Escorts (from memory of building the car 20 years ago) are a bit of a thing.
I think ours has a double ended horizontal fan rather than the style shown in the link.
Also I think the position of the hoses can vary a bit (where they go through the bulkhead). That's why I think I'd like to fix / modify the existing one as at least I know it all fits. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
That is just so wrong.
In message , Usenet Nutter writes
The Ice Road Truckers sometimes do it, apparently. :)
The last car I did that on was (I think) my Austin A40 Devon, in the mid
60's. Before that, Dad's 1936 Morris 8 and his 1936 Standard 10 both had custom leather jackets, which could be rolled up once the engine was warm.
On my old cars, red coolant usually meant time to use rust remover,
and then Bar Seal.
or it was the old antifreeze that changed colour if the head gasket leaked. Anyone else remember that type? called something like Holts? Colour Change antifreeze
That would be Rad-Clean. :)
It vaguely rings a bell. When my g/friend's gasket leaked it was difficult to see the colour because it had all drained away.
Head skim and new gasket...
You'd think a woman who had owned and driven a car for 40 years would check the levels on a recently purchased S/H car. They were ok when I looked at it after she brought it home...
Loose the water flow past most temperature gauge sensors and the accuracy of the reading goes completely out of the window. On some vehicles you'll have a very low or zero reading that won't change significantly regardless of engine load and the next thing you'll experience is a seized engine.
But on vehicles fitted with an oil cooler without a thermostat reducing the area of the cooler duct makes a huge difference to engine warm up and also reduces massive swings in oil temperature when moving from stop start traffic to open road driving.
I've not seen a modern vehicle with an oil cooler that doesn't have a thermostat.
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