<VV> Reading the dang manual ...NO CORVAIR (unless yours has
aradiator)
Charles Lee at Proper Pro Per
chaz at ProperProPer.com
Fri Feb 9 20:25:51 EST 2007
Well, the temp was "pretty steady" which is usually good, but not so good when the head is blowing and pistons are cracking, due to the extreme overheating, while the gauge says "All's well."
And so, besides doing a lot of work to fix things that broke, I should have been double-checking all the things that DO work, to make sure that they are, in fact, working ?
I'm not talking about defective gauges, etc, but I do worry about defective designs that don't work, as they were designed to give false readings.
That worries me more than a little. Sure, cars are more complex than they were for many reasons, but that should be reason to make them more effective in keeping drivers aware of their sensitivities, not keep them in the dark.
Even being buried on page 97 of a 200 page manual is better than giving false readings, requiring second-guessing things that appear to be working ?
Just venting again, since nothing's going to change (the 80/20 rule is alive and well, it seems !)
Thanks for listening
----- Original Message -----
From: Lonny Clark
To: Charles Lee at Proper Pro Per
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 4:10 PM
Subject: Re: <VV> Reading the dang manual ...NO CORVAIR (unless yours has aradiator)
The modern Fords have a pretty steady temperature once they're warmed up, so maybe it is reading correctly. My T-Bird temperature reads correctly - I've double-checked it with an ohmmeter, but the oil pressure gauge is the way you describe your temperature gauge. It just stays at about the two-thirds mark if there's any oil pressure at all. With a simple modification the oil pressure gauge will work the way it's supposed to work. Basically you put a new oil pressure sender on the engine, then you bypass the 20-ohm resistors in the gauge circuit, there is one on the back of the gauge and there may or may not be one near the sender. I don't know if this is true for your model, however.
I know what you mean about the AC, I never had a car with working AC (nor did my parents) until I moved to Houston. I was only there for a week before I decided I needed to fix the AC, coincidentally in the same Camaro I was talking about earlier.
Lonny
On 2/8/07, Charles Lee at Proper Pro Per <chaz at properproper.com> wrote:
My Ford had an "idiot gauge" I guess, that just stayed right in the middle,
and fluctuated just enough as it warmed up, etc, to know it wasn't stuck,
but was always somewhere, nicely centered in the "safe" region."
The heater never worked well in this car, but I never really needed it, and
I got used to it. So Cal will do that to you. Now, AC, that's a different
story !
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lonny Clark" <lclarkpdx at gmail.com>
To: "Charles Lee at Proper Pro Per" <chaz at properproper.com>
Cc: "Virtual Vairs" <VirtualVairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 12:31 PM
Subject: Re: <VV> Reading the dang manual ...NO CORVAIR (unless yours has
aradiator)
>I used to have a Camaro with a leaky water pump. I used the temperature
> gauge to determine when it needed more water. If I had been driving long
> enough to warm the car up, and the temp gauge read under 200, I knew I
> needed to put more water in it. So yes, it didn't show that the car is
> overheating, it showed the opposite. If there were an idiot light instead
> of
> a temp gauge, I would never have known. A couple of years later, I had an
> Audi Fox that lost water to god-knows-where. I never did figure out where
> the water went, must have been a bad head gasket, but the exhaust smelled
> OK, and there were no visible leaks. With no temperature gauge, I knew
> that
> when the heater stopped blowing warm air, I needed more water in the
> radiator.
>
> Good thing I got better-paying jobs as I grew older. Now I can afford to
> actually maintain my cars. As a bonus, I can buy cars that cost more than
> $1,000 (both of the cars above cost half of that).
>
> Lonny
>
> On 2/7/07, Charles Lee at Proper Pro Per <chaz at properproper.com> wrote:
>>
>> This is a good point, reading the manual and all ... Wish I had thought
>> of
>> that ...
>>
>> I think I may have fallen victim to a high ph level in my coolant causing
>> the head gasket to blow.
>>
>> The ZX-2 that I mentioned a few threads back (re eBay) went from 80+
>> mph,
>> running beautifully (like it had for 130,000 miles before that (with zero
>> repairs, except timing belt) died in a bout 10 seconds, without a groan.
>> Just coasted to a stop, dead.
>>
>> One diagnosis was the coolant, and apparently somewhere in the manual (I
>> haven't found it yet) it says to change the water ?
>> What ? Who in the world would change that ? Oil OK, but water ?
>>
>> Apparently, the ph corrodes the gasket, which starts thing boiling (this
>> confounded thing uses water to cool it !)
>> Can you believe that ? Water ? Why ? Air is free, and you don't have to
>> change it (do you ?)
>>
>> Here's another thing I heard about this : the water temp gauge actually
>> measures the temperature of the water.
>> OK, that seems reasonable, until you think, "Hey, what if the water leaks
>> out ? Then what ? There's no water to measure its temp, right ?"
>> Well, what I have heard is that that is the reason my temp gauge did not
>> register "hot" - because when the water decides to be somewhere else, the
>> temp sensor has nothing to measure and doesn't say "hot" - it just says
>> "all's well."
>>
>> Is this true ?
>>
>> Wouldn't it make more sense to measure the temp of the head ?
>> Anyone know if this is true ?
>>
>> I need to get a shop manual for this thing to find out the truth.
>>
>> Later,
>> Chaz
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: < AeroNed at aol.com>
>> To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 9:01 PM
>> Subject: Re: <VV> Electric Fuel Pump...
>>
>>
>> >
>> > In a message dated 2/7/2007 10:34:43 P.M. Central Standard Time,
>> > FrankCB at aol.com writes:
>> >
>> > This is another good reason to at least skim through the owner's
>> manual
>> > when you buy a new car. I'm the only person I know (besides son Jim)
>> > who
>> > does that.
>> >
>> >
>> > Add me to your list, but I read it intently. Must be an
>> engineer thing...
>> >
>> > BTW My electric fuel pump has the hot side wired through a relay that
>> > closes
>> > with ignition. The ground side goes through a Vega oil pressure switch.
>> > The
>> > reason for the Vega switch is that it has both open with pressure and
>> > closed
>> > with pressure. The closed with pressure goes to the pump and open with
>> > pressure goes to the dash light. I want to also install a inertia
>> switch
>> > someday.
>> >
>> > Ned
>> > _______________________________________________
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