Click and Clack cartoon debuts tonight on PBS (Car Maintenance)
July 10, 2008 by tsikot · Comments Off
, Etc., Lifestyle, Celebrities
If you’ve been dying to see animated versions of Click and Clack — aliases Tom and Ray Magliozzi — then you’ll want to tune into your local PBS station tonight. Their new series, As the Wrench Turns, starts off with their presidential campaign, with one of the platforms being “America needs a lube job!” We’re all for it. Big Bird and the Cookie Monster will also make a cameo, though we’re not sure if it’s tonight. Check your PBS site for local times, or check out the show’s site for a preview of the mechanical mayhem.
[Source: Kicking Tires]
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Source: www.autoblog.com
[tags]car maintenance, car tech, car care[/tags]
Ford officially extends oil change interval to 7,500 miles (Car Maintenance)
May 28, 2007 by tsikot · Leave a Comment
Ford has been studying the question of when to suggest oil changes, and they’ve hit upon 7,500 miles for 2007 and newer cars. Not only are modern oils better, modern engines are also better. You don’t have carburetors metering poorly on winter mornings, tolerances are a lot tighter, and operating temperatures are typically a little hotter, helping to cook off the junk that accumulates in the oil. Some manufacturers use a sensor to monitor the health of the oil and light a service lamp when it calculates change is required. Ford contends that its customers prefer a set amount of miles between changes. The automaker also cites the environmental benefits that come from less waste oil, monetary savings, as well as extensive tests as positive aspects of the new recommendation. I’m convinced that the only reason to suggest changing the oil at 3,000 miles in a modern car is to sell more oil. Perhaps an air-cooled Porsche would stress dino juice more, and could sensibly require changes at 3K, but you can stretch to drain intervals that would make your father gasp and clutch his chest by running modern oils in your modern engine. Of course, your driving pattern has a lot to do with it, as well. If you’re in town for short hops, you’ll require a shorter drain interval than the guy running Mobil 1 for his highway commute and changing the oil at 25 kilomile intervals (raising my hand).
[Source: AP]
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Source: www.autoblog.com
[tags]car maintenance, car tech, car care[/tags]
Nostalgia - Flexstones and Flatheads (Car Maintenance)
May 24, 2007 by tsikot · Leave a Comment
With it getting colder here in New England, us Yankee Autobloggers have to prepare for winter. This often entails a final running of the yard equipment, just today I mulched the rest of the leaves that’d fallen on the back yard. There’s nothing quite like the roar of an air-cooled “one-lunger” ringing out through the crisp air. The smell of exhaust brings back memories of long ago, when that same toxic unburned hydrocarbon parfum emanated forth from the tailpipe of passing Delmont 88s and Bobcats, among others. There’s something about the way the scent of decay from the leaves mixes with the exhaust and combines with the air’s coolness that just brings to mind those stylized pictures of happy family life in the horn-rimmed 1950s - earflap hats, red plaid jackets and all.
More after the jump.
Putting the small-engined beasts up for winter rest is one thing, but the flip side is the cold-weather workhorses have to be ready to go when the flakes stick. It was after a particularly nasty December day last year that claimed the life of a rather expensive transmission that a 1972 Ariens 724 arrived at the Massachusetts Autoblog HQ. This year, it’s received some TLC before being asked to perform. After spending some time going through it and getting it ready for winter, the hankering for a fun old car like a ‘52 Ford Business Coupe with a Flathead is really strong. It’s got all the good old stuff that we forget about now.
Tuning a car used to be an organic process where you’d have to balance a bunch of adjustments against each other just right to find the sweet spot. The snowblower would deliver you a nasty tickle if you reached too close to the spark plug lead with all that blowing snow in the air, so replacing the magneto was necessary. Magnetos are cool - they deliver you a spark at the plug without an external battery or coil. Engines with magnetos will just pop along forever. To get at the magneto, the flywheel needed to come off. Hiding under there was a set of ignition points and a condenser. “Oh yeah! Points!” Now, back in the day, nobody got excited about points, they were troublesome, they required regular filing and adjusting as the gap would change and alter your ignition timing. Still, when it’s not your daily driver, it’s so cool to be able to set the gap with a folded-over matchbook cover and clean them up with a flexstone, just like my grandfather did.
Any old engine that’s sat a while, like that Flathead in our imaginary Business Coupe (until we find it in some barn), is going to suffer from some carburetor malady. Carburetor. It’s a fuel-metering thingy, working on the venturi principle. Again, no battery needed — as long as the engine’s spinning, the carb will meter fuel. The one I was dealing with had a shot float bowl gasket, sucking in air, and a nasty cocktail of water, old gas and rust in the fuel lines. Replacing the needles and seats in the carb is like fine surgery. You need to pull it all apart carefully (watch those springs and pins and whatnot!), clean out the passages and then reassemble and adjust on the bench to a baseline. You may likely find yourself cutting gaskets like I did. Cutting your own gaskets makes you feel like some sort of old-world craftsman, tracing the old one and then cutting and punching the holes, almost like a cobbler.
Bolting it all back together and firing the beast up off a can of ether until the idle jet is close enough so it won’t stall is exciting, you get to hear the old girl clear her throat. Now the fun begins. Slow, methodical half and quarter-turns with the screwdriver while listening for subtle changes in the engine note bring you close to being one with the spinning bits inside the crankcase. All the while, your mind is attuned to what the engine’s feeling, “a little more, a little more, whoops too lean, quick back a quarter or it’ll stall.” Once the idle is smooth and even like an old Singer sewing machine, crack that throttle, boy!
ROAAAAR! Ah the sonorous growl of tuning the high-speed jets. Same lean vs. rich dance here, and then you have to try part throttle and see if it’s correct and make compensations so that she’ll return to idle with an abrupt throttle closure. Stalls are bad. And the smell! You will STINK when you’re done, but the heady aroma of a just-slightly-rich mixture (facilitating good winter running) is addictive. Someone needs to make a cologne and call it “Header Smoke” or something. After you’ve got the induction and ignition worked out, you need to move on to checking and adjusting valve lash. Then you’d best grease all the zerk fittings you can find, balljoints, universal joints, etc. The checklist on an older, more “user-serviceable” car is far longer than what we need to do on the “sealed for life” vehicles of the modern era. There’s a high level of man-machine bonding that goes on with older vehicles or just powered implements like the snowblower. You can’t get that rush from bolting on a chrome intake snorkel.
The week of unseasonable mid-60s has given way to appropriate December weather here in the snow belt, and I can’t wait to hear the steady Brrrrrrrrr of my Ariens’ Tecumseh powerplant as cold flakes sting my cheeks, the plows rumble by and fill my driveway apron with mashed-potato looking snow and the air fills with the exhaust of a little motor beating in time with my own heart.
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Source: www.autoblog.com
[tags]car maintenance, car tech, car care[/tags]
Ford officially extends oil change interval to 7,500 miles (Car Maintenance)
March 23, 2007 by tsikot · Leave a Comment
Ford has been studying the question of when to suggest oil changes, and they’ve hit upon 7,500 miles for 2007 and newer cars. Not only are modern oils better, modern engines are also better. You don’t have carburetors metering poorly on winter mornings, tolerances are a lot tighter, and operating temperatures are typically a little hotter, helping to cook off the junk that accumulates in the oil. Some manufacturers use a sensor to monitor the health of the oil and light a service lamp when it calculates change is required. Ford contends that its customers prefer a set amount of miles between changes. The automaker also cites the environmental benefits that come from less waste oil, monetary savings, as well as extensive tests as positive aspects of the new recommendation. I’m convinced that the only reason to suggest changing the oil at 3,000 miles in a modern car is to sell more oil. Perhaps an air-cooled Porsche would stress dino juice more, and could sensibly require changes at 3K, but you can stretch to drain intervals that would make your father gasp and clutch his chest by running modern oils in your modern engine. Of course, your driving pattern has a lot to do with it, as well. If you’re in town for short hops, you’ll require a shorter drain interval than the guy running Mobil 1 for his highway commute and changing the oil at 25 kilomile intervals (raising my hand).
[Source: AP]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Source: www.autoblog.com
[tags]car maintenance, car tech, car care[/tags]
Toolkit Upgrades Round Two - more fun toys (Car Maintenance)
March 19, 2007 by tsikot · Leave a Comment
, Maintenance, Etc., Tech
A while back, we expounded on some simple items that brought more joy to the automotive arts. Spring is just around the corner, and we’ve compiled a big ol’ list of things to address in celebration of the Vernal Equinox. Unpacking the tools from their long winter nap is a ritual here, and it’s like reconnecting with old friends. Off we go.
Continue reading Toolkit Upgrades Round Two - more fun toys
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Source: www.autoblog.com
[tags]car maintenance, car tech, car care[/tags]
