Strange mechanical theories?!?

Not that gentle,but sure better than the "smoking ball of fire" of a fixed wing nose plant.

 

On the oil getting pumped completely out of the oil pan, again back in the early 70s GM had a warning out that #40 oil was not to be used in their engines as it was too heavy a viscosity for the tight clearances in the GM oil pump.I remember having to send oil samples from 2 different cars to be checked by the factory before they would warrentee some repairs

 

i remember years ago at my dads service station a lady asked us to change the air in her tires.

 

I ran across a very odd Ebay auction once. The guy had lots of old NOS GM parts. He had some packets of "anti static powder". The instructions were something to the effect of pouring this packet of powder in the tires and it was somehow suppose to get rid of the static on the radio. I wish I had saved it it was just so crazy.

 

i dunno if the battery myth is true or not, but at the plant i work at all our battery rooms (for emergency back up systems) are kept exceptionally balmy, like 75+ degrees. they also continually charge one week then discharge/recharge them to keep them in good condition and they sit on specialized racks away from the concrete walls and concrete floors. i think the colder it is the less fluid the electrolyte becomes which is needed for electron flow. im guessing to that is why its not a good idea to put a battery on a cold concrete floor.
on another note my dad used to say the same thing never put your battery or your ass on a cold concrete floor. it discharges the battery and the second will give you hemmoroids.

 

I've heard a lot of people call 'em "Cadillac converters"

After correcting one gentleman, he explained to me that they are called Cadillac converters because Cadillac invented them in the early 70's.

 

Going back many years, my grandfather was the local 'Mr Fixit' if you had a car problem. A lady came to him to complain about her car, which was running rough as guts and used up heaps of fuel. Jim tuned it, checked it over and gave it back. Next week she's back with the same complaint, so he checked it over again, and there was nothing wrong with it.

She came to pick it up, hopped behind the wheel, yanked the manual choke out as far as it would go and hung her purse on the extended knob. She thought it was just a handy hook for her purse, and wondered why the car ran like crap.

Cheers, Glen..

 

As far as the battery myth; I was told it had to do with the old tar tops having a case with a specific gravity that was less than that of cement, and that new batteries no longer have that problem. I still set mine on wood, after all, wood is good.

Here's a good one; a guy I know swears that piston rings spin so there is no reason to worry where the ring gaps are, he said that's why they put the cross-hatch in there.

 

One more thing, high volume pumps are for old motors.

 

Yes, of course, rolling an old battery around on a cement floor an kick it, an bang it' that can work! knocks the shorts off them plates son. Yes that old battery tale? Its the electrons! they will creep all over that batt. till they find the opsite post and discharge that sucker. especially dirty acidy ones that are on an old, damp,dirty cement floor. And the Bon-Ami? rering in a can! thats right ! only it was a model A 4 banger [the 265 came later] kinda creepy eh?
OT mech

 

Back in the day when battery's had wooden bottoms instead of plastic bottoms, maybe this was ans issue, Know not so much!

 

The battery thing is twofold.

The first is that lead-acid batteries (and most other battery techologies) don't work well at low temperatures. Storing it on the cement floor will keep it cooler than it would be otherwise (as the cement floor in your garage is usually much cooler than ambient). As a result, on a coolish day picking your battery up off the cold cement floor and trying to use it, you may notice it is down on juice. That's because the chemical reaction is adversely effected by the temperature.

The reason you see batteries stored up off the floor in various containers has nothing to do with charge, and everything to do with the sulferic acid inside of them. Many chemicals, sulferic acid included, are required to be stored via a double containment method once you have over a certain amount. If you have a lot of batteries, that means you need to store them up off the floor in some sort of container (pan) so that if one leaks, it doesnt spill all over the floor, into the drain, etc.

That's an OSHA/EPA thing. At work here we are required to store all chemicals in double containement - even shit like windex.

I promise that concrete is not a sufficiently good conductor to actually discharge your battery, nor is the case it is made of. (Think, if the case were sufficiently conductive to allow a small current flow between the + to the cement then back up into the -... why wouldnt it just flow from the + to the - ?

Total Bullshit. But hey - I'm just an engineer w/ several years of electronics experience. What do I know ?

(btw, I store batteries successfully on concrete all the time)

 

I heard the Bon Ami story from a certified aircraft engine mechanic.He said after an overhaul on the older radial engines,if the rings didn't seat,a mechanic would offer a small amount of fine grit into the carburetor of the running engine.He might have been bullshitting me,but he had a straight face when telling the story.

 

Running out of oil pressure halfway through second gear when you're drag racing isn't because the high volume pump sucked the pan dry, it's because the acceleration stacked all the oil up against the back wall of the engine where the pump couldn't get it. More oil in a bigger pan just makes this "stack" deeper so the sucker is still covered. That and baffles that are usually in aftermarket pans help keep it flowing.

 

I guess I should have said "back to the crankcase" rather than the pan, I thought you guys would get the idea, not pick nits.
Some factors will indeed cause a pan to suck dry, like too much oil flow to the top end (hence "restrictors" sold for some engines) and cold weather with thick oil. 2.8 GM V6's are famous for starting up cold and pounding the bearings to death because they suck a hole in the cold oil and run dry.

 

To go back to the first post in this thread, the term "frost plug" or "freeze plug" is wrong. They are core plugs. A frozen block will push the whole side out before one of them moves. Been there, done that!

 

I always understood the 'Battery on a Concrete floor' thing was twofold, the cold (as previously mentioned) and the scum that builds on the top (after a while) acts as a conductor to help drain the battery.

I have heard of the 'turn the headlights on to warm up the battery.' But it was for a 5 count, and wait 30 seconds. I have never tried it myself.

 

Lets add to the fray here.
In one of our school's elec vehicles, Yes, an actual Yugo!, converted to run on DC only, the voltage under the hood was ~120 which one evening, in damp weather maintained a "glow" or corona of charge displayed between the extreme "ends" of the system. So I suspect there was actual discharge, if only to maintain the very "mild" plasma we observed. If you live in a climate where the temps, and moisture vary, I believe that the concrete discharge issue might be enhanced by the "sweating" of the floor. If there is a layer of dust upon the battery, then add a moist atmosphere and watch the voltage as time passes.

 

There are those who believe in Newton's Third Law of Motion..For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

It ain't true. If it was, every time you sneezed, your ass would bite the chair, and every time you farted, you would spontaneously inhale.

 

On the subject of Bon Ami, my grandfather owned a Chevy dealership in '55, and confirmed the fact that the "Bon Ami rebuild" was sanctioned by G.M. for the new 265s with oil consumption problems caused by inadequate ring seating . On the subject of mechanical geniuses, when I worked in a machine shop, a guy came in and wanted us to bore his block .010 over so that he could run standard size pistons with .010 over rings!

 

Yeah, I'll disagree with you. At 2/3 track on a high 12 second car, the "G" forces are all but gone. If your scenario were true it'd happened in 1st gear when the "G" forces were more in play. However, in your behalf, isn't your scenario a form of sucking the pan dry anyway? Isn't sucking the pan dry a result of oil being elsewhere OTHER than the pump pickup?

 

Well it's not just his "reasoning", it's true. It's called autorotation.

Autorotation is the term used for the flight condition during which no engine power is supplied and the main rotor is driven only by the action of the relative wind. It is the means of safely landing a helicopter after engine failure or certain other emergencies. The helicopter transmission or power train is designed so that the engine, when it stops, is automatically disengaged from the main rotor system to allow the main rotor to rotate freely in its original direction. For obvious reasons, this autorotational capability is not only a most desirable characteristic but is indeed a capability required of all helicopters before FAA certification is granted.

U.S. Department of Transportation
Federal Aviation Administration

 

Yup.

Just like a Maple tree seed...

~Jason

 

The best one I ever heard was the guy who swore that putting a wind deflector on the back of his stationwagon dropped the rpm a couple hundred at 60 mph because of the lower drag.

Think about it...

 

I thought the part Atomic Age was poking fun at was the 'gentle, soft landing' part. I have seen live auto rotation practice (over a decade ago now) where the engine was actually shut down. None of the 'landings' looked either gentle or soft.

 

actually, that is supported somwhat by the laws of physics. something like that wagon or a school bus or a semi creates a good sized low pressure area behind it that WILL cause drag because it does have some very miniscule suction affecting the vehicle to that low pressure area. if the wing is designed properly it will help to fill in that low pressure area, thus alleviating somewhat the tiny backwards pull on the vehicle. why do you think fast cars taper to the front and back...it makes a smaller low pressure area behind it. check out bernoulli's principle some time

 

But wouldn't the rpm to go 60 mph be dependent on the gearing, not on drag. Yes it makes it easier for the engine to maintain that rpm but I don't see how decreasing drag will lower rpm at a given speed. He did not have a tach in this car by the way, strictly a perception on his part.

 

in an automatic with a non lockup converter it will make it slip slightly less with less load (drag.) probably not a couple hundred RPM diff but possibly noticeable.

 

OK food for thought. Hadn't taken an automatic into account.

 

I think it is discussed (concerning sailboat research) in C.A. Marjong's (?) Aero-hydrodynamics text. Think of the shape of a Sunfish sailboat's sail. His theory is that two small vortexes form, one at each furthest exit where the wind exits the sail. These are thought to be two counter-rotating corkscrew-like trails. It is supposedly a very efficient form of sail called a "Crab-Claw". So, if you can "duct" some of the air passing over a body to fill-in a low pressure turbulent area, behind the vehicle (for ex.) it might behave in the same way.