February 12th, 2009 No Comments »
A car converts about a third of its fuel’s energy to mechanical energy to move the car. About a third goes out the tailpipe unused. Most of the remaining third is released as heat. That heat must be conducted away from the car’s engine, or the engine will reach temperatures fatal to the engine. At the simplest conceptual level, here’s what happens:
The water pump pushes cool coolant from the radiator into the engine, where heat from the engine is transferred into the coolant, thereby cooling the engine. Assuming the thermostat is open or partially open, the hot coolant leaves the engine through the thermostat and is transported to the radiator, where its heat is transferred to the air blowing through the radiator, thereby cooling the coolant. The cooled water is then ready to once again go to the water pump. Continue reading »
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February 12th, 2009 No Comments »
The overheat troubleshooting strategy I’d like to recommend involves the Universal Troubleshooting Process, which is listed below to refresh your memory:
- Get the Attitude
- Make a Damage Control Plan
- Formulate a Symptom Description
- Reproduce the Symptom
- Do the General Maintenance
- Narrow it Down
- Replace or Repair the Defective Part(s)
- Test
- Take Pride
- Prevent Future Occurrence
The remainder of this article describes my suggestion on how to put the Universal Troubleshooting Process to work in diagnosing an overheat. Continue reading »
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January 27th, 2009 No Comments »
In a system with identical or parallel subsystems, swap components between those subsystems and see whether or not the problem moves with the swapped component. If it does, you’ve just swapped the faulty component; if it doesn’t, keep searching!
This is a powerful troubleshooting method, because it gives you both a positive and a negative indication of the swapped component’s fault: when the bad part is exchanged between identical systems, the formerly broken subsystem will start working again and the formerly good subsystem will fail. Continue reading »
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