Twas the night before Christmas-Text version!

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the dark.
Not a car was still broken, all those plugs had their spark.
Wrenches were stashed all snug in their boxes.
While me by myself was having Christmas party leftovers, some bagels, and loxes.
Out in the lot there was such a clatter.
I sprang to my feet and yelled Hey what's the matter!
Now what to my blood shot tired eyes should appear.
But some crazy old guy with sleigh with reindeer.
He approached the front door with a smile so bright.
I quickly unlocked it and turned back on the office light.
Excuse me kind sir but I am having some trouble.
The left rudder on my sleigh has started to rumble.
The balancing was wrong pulling much to the right.
Those reindeer have been working too hard, this cold night.
I have so much to do and little time to do it.
Could you please get right too it!
Without saying a word I went to work right away.
Too bad the alignment machine had no specs for a sleigh.
Meanwhile, the reindeer were prancing around.
That Rudolf and comet what a couple of clowns.
In a matter of time the rudder was straight and the alignment done too.
I helped him load up all the presents, but one.
He wanted to pay me, but cash he had none.
I hope it was from Sears a one half inch air gun.
He started the sleigh by calling their names.
Come now, Dasher!, Prancer and Blitzen!
Get off your butts Comet and Vixen!
It started to idle and float in the air.
Then Rudolf lit up the sky with his nose extraordinaire.
I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight.
Happy Christmas to carfix online, and to all a good-night!

Expensive and Misunderstood.

Don't Be Fuelish!

The Most Important Part

 

Avoiding Catalytic Converter Theft | Goss' Garage

The Basics of EV Charging Levels | Goss' Garage

Throttle Body Issues | Goss' Garage

He is back! Deciding on a new or used car?

Bonus question for month of Nov. 2021. What is it?

Pat Goss answers this one- If a 2007 Honda CRV only has 110,000 miles on it, is that a red flag?

I’m constantly amazed how people are so concerned with miles on the odometers of cars. What does mileage really mean other than the rotations of the wheels. Miles tell you nothing about the actual condition of the vehicle and if you think about it miles can be very misleading. Consider that two identical vehicles are driven differently one is driven 50K miles at and average speed of 50mph while the second one is driven 25K miles at an average speed of 25mph. Most drivers would look at the second one and say wow that’s very low miles, that’s the one to buy, but is it? If you do the math you will quickly see that the number of hours if use are exactly the same and because he higher average speed is easier on the vehicle it might actually have less wear on the engine. Plus with more miles you will typically get a lower price so you might be better off with the vehicle with higher miles. Although miles are mostly responsible for the price of a vehicle they are not responsible for the actual condition of the vehicle. A thorough test of the vehicle before purchase is a much better way to decide. In other words a 25K mile vehicle that has been beat to death and poorly maintained is not a safer bet than a 50K mile meticulously maintained vehicle. Condition, history and maintenance are keys to to getting a good used vehicle.

Did you fix it, or make the problem go away ?

Pat Goss on Is a Neo-socket fuel saver effective?

In reading their website I would have to say, no it doesn’t work. It is a capacitor similar to the battery in your car in that it can store very small amounts of electricity. That stored electricity which comes from the electrical system of your car is released back into the electrical system to reduce alternator drag on the engine. Energy cannot be created or destroyed it can only be changed in form so the energy stored in the capacitor is your car’s energy. Because your alternator has to produce the energy for the capacitor it creates drag on the engine then the release of the energy reduces the drag but this is nothing more than creating drag of X then reducing drag by X, in other words this is a wash. Additionally this is a very small capacitor so any electricity it would store is so miniscule relative to the car’s alternator it would make no sense. If it were a capacitor big enough to make a difference it would be physically huge and the amount of current to charge it would would be huge and could not be conducted through the cigarette lighter socket which is rated for five amps. Most cars today have 150 amp or larger alternators so to make a difference in gas mileage you would have to reduce the alternator output by 75 amps or more. A tiny capacitor like the one in the ad would likely store fractions of one amp. Plus any charge into the capacitor came from alternator which caused an engine draw and used fuel to produce it then reduced the draw and saved fuel when it discharged the energy so it uses energy then it saves energy. It appears to be snake oil in its purest form.

Pat Goss Answers this one! What are the upsides and downsides of buying a used car from a private party whom you don't know but found in an ad, versus buying a vehicle from a used car lot?

Private party used car sales can be one of the easiest ways to be taken! There are literally tens of thousands of private sellers who are actually “curb-stoners”. Curb-stoners are highly dishonest scum that prey on folks who need inexpensive transportation. They go to the local junk auctions and buy cheap cars with high mileage or a title problem (totaled, rebuilt, flood damaged, etc.) then adjust the odometer to a lower mileage or “wash” the title through a state that doesn’t brand titles (make disclosures on the title) so the title looks clean and normal. Once the odometer or title problems have been addressed they clean the car and make it look great. Next the curb-stoner advertises the car in some popular forum and you call. There is typically a story, a real tear jerker, that comes with the sales pitch. These stories often include the death or disablement of a special family member from out of state. Remember the washed title? The title is now from another state and may even be in someone else’s name so there has to be a story to explain the discrepancy. These stories often include a beloved aunt, grandmother, mother, sister, etc. from out of town who succumbed to a terminal disease (usually cancer and usually some horrific type like a brain tumor) and family members asked for help in disposing of the car to help buy a headstone, casket, feed his/her children, etc. You show up to buy the car and am impressed with how it looks and you feel sorry for the person selling it who is suffering through a major tragedy. You are convinced to buy the car when the seller drops the price so he/she can get the money to the family in a timely manner so the children don’t go to CPS, the surviving family member isn’t evicted, his/her children will be able to buy food tonight, you name the issue. You buy the car without a pre-purchase inspection, without a warranty, without a documents check or any type of safeguard what-so-ever. Hell it isn’t even safety inspected. Later you take the car for service or a required safety inspection only to find it is a total wreck needing tons of work. You try to call the seller but the number goes straight to voice mail. So you drive to the house where you bought the car in the driveway only to find the house is actually unoccupied. Faced with the reality of the situation you either have to come up with the money to fix the car or scrap it and take a huge loss you can’t afford. On my way to work I pass two places where there is always at least one of these good looking wrecks with a for sale by owner sign in the windshield beside the road. In a survey I conducted a while back (for a local consumer protection agency I did consulting for) on used car ads here in the Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia Metro area 16 out of 18 private ads investigated wound up being curb-stoner ads. It’s a huge problem so be very careful when buying from a private seller.

Ground never does anything

Pat Goss answers: Do cylinder deactivation systems cause engines to wear out?

Do cylinder deactivation systems cause engines to wear out faster, or is there a use for it? Based on what we see in our shops I would have to say that for the average driver and good preventive maintenance there is no measurable increased wear. But in certain very specific driving conditions where the engine remains in deactivated mode for long periods of time we have seen valve lifter, camshaft and camshaft bearing issues. We suspect this to be due to modified oil flow for the system’s active valve lifters but even here the problems seem to be extremely rare in the fleets we service. As far as things like balance, piston wear, ring wear and the host of other myths about cylinder deactivation we see none of those problems. Balance of the engine is properly maintained because these systems deactivate out of phase cylinders. On V type engines on one bank there will be one or two inactive center cylinders (V6–1/V8–2) and two active end cylinders while on the opposite bank the sequence is reversed. So there is never any such thing as an entire bank of cylinders that is disabled. These systems use active valve lifters so that during inactive operation the valves to the inactive cylinders do not open. So no air or fuel enters the cylinders, therefore no general contamination issues. Because everything is evenly spread out across the engine there are no overheating issues. Overall we would give the systems a high rating with mostly no measurable added wear. The cylinder deactivation systems are for mileage improvement and although the improvement is small per vehicle the cumulative amount of gas saved nationally and globally through tens of millions of these vehicles is substantial.

Fuel Trin is always changing Part 2

Fuel trim is always changing Part 1

Batteries and sparks! Oh My!! (Pat Goss answers this one.)

Why is it that instructions for using car jumper cables go to great pains to insure that you don’t create a spark near the battery, but if you install a new battery the instructions acknowledge there will be sparks that are unavoidable?
A spark around a warm or hot battery (from charging by a charger or another running car) can cause the battery to explode. As batteries are charged they can produce hydrogen gas which in the right concentration can be highly explosive. It has been estimated that an exploding battery can generate as much explosive power as three sticks of dynamite.
Here’s the rub with batteries, even most “sealed” batteries are not sealed in the sense you might think they are. They are sealed to the extent that they have check valves that prevent the escape of gasses during normal charging but during periods of over charging these control valves allow some escape to prevent a too high internal battery pressure. So most batteries can generate enough hydrogen gas to become explosive under the proper circumstance.
During jumping (which I would never do. You can do every step 100% properly and still damage one or both cars or blow yourself up) the charge rate may be largely unregulated and cause the battery to become overheated which in turn can cause hydrogen gas to escape.
Because hydrogen gas is explosive in the right concentration both booster cables should never be connected directly to the discharged battery (the car has failed to start through multiple attempts and the booster cables have led to higher temps). Consequently the final booster cable connection should be made at the car with the dead (and hot) battery. This is also the first cable to be removed.
But, that final booster cable connection should be made at a clean metal part of the engine as far away from the battery as possible, never to the battery itself. When that final connection is made there will be a spark and you want that spark as far away from any hydrogen gas as is possible to minimize the possibility of explosion.
When installing a battery it will not normally be overheated or be in an enclosed space where hydrogen gas can collect. Therefore, although there will be a spark when the final connection (negative cable) is touched to the battery post it is far less likely to cause an explosion. But there are instructions in the vehicle service manual on how to protect one’s self from the effects of an exploding battery and these instructions should be closely followed.

Sometimes you need 2 tools to find 1 problem PART 3

Sometimes you need 2 tools to find 1 problem PART 2

Sometimes you need 2 tools to find 1 problem Part 1

How to find an active short

Profiles in the Automotive Industry- Elon Reeve Musk

 

• Elon Reeve Musk is an engineer, best known as cofounder PayPal, founder SpaceX, early investor and CEO Tesla, founder Boring Company, and more.
• Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa.
• After his parents divorced in 1980, Musk lived mostly with his father in Pretoria.
• Musk graduated from Pretoria Boys High School in South Africa.
• At age 10, he developed an interest in computing using the Commodore VIC-20.
• He learned computer programming using a manua. By12, he sold a BASIC-based video game Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500.
• An awkward and introverted child, Musk was bullied throughout his childhood and was once hospitalized after a group of boys threw him down a flight of stairs.
• He attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School and Bryanston High School before graduating from Pretoria Boys High School.
• He moved to Canada in 1989, lived with a cousin in Saskatchewan, and worked odd jobs at a farm and lumber-mill.
• In 1990, Musk entered Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
• Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania; he graduated in 1997 with a BS in Economics from the Wharton School and a BA in Physics.
• In 1994, Musk interned in Silicon Valley at an energy storage start-up called Pinnacle Research Institute and at start-up Rocket Science Games.
• In 1995, Musk, co-founded Zip2, with his brother Kimbal and Greg Kouri. Using funds from angel investors, Zip2 developed an internet city guide for publishers.
• Musk slept on the couch and showered at the YMCA. He coded at seven nights a week, so the company’s single computer could be used in the day for business.
• Zip2 obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.
• In 1999, Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307M in cash. Musk received $22M for his 7%.
• In March 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company, with $10 million from the sale of Zip2.
• One year later, the company merged with Confinity, which had a money-transfer service called PayPal. The merged company was renamed PayPal in 2001.
• In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in stock, of which Musk received $165 million for his 11.7%.
• In 2001, Musk conceived of Mars Oasis, a greenhouse on Mars to save mankind.
• In 2002, after two failed attempts to buy Russian ICBMs, Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp., trading as SpaceX, with $100M his own funds.
• In 2006, SpaceX was selected as one of two companies to for a crew and cargo resupply demonstration contract to the ISS
• In 2008, SpaceX received $1.6 billion for a Commercial Resupply Services program.
• Starting in 2011, SpaceX was funded to develop the Dragon 2 crew capsule.
• SpaceX’s goal is to reduce the cost of human spaceflight by a factor of 10. SpaceX successfully landed the first stage near the launch pad and later on a drone ship.
• In 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket in operation.
• In 2015, SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of LEO satellites to provide Internet access. The total cost of the decade-long project will be $10B.
• In May 2020, SpaceX launched its first manned flight, the Demo-2 to the ISS.
• Musk hopes to send humans to Mars within 20 years, with the first launch in 2022.
• In 2004, Musk led the Series A round of investment in Tesla. He joined Tesla’s Board as Chair. Musk became CEO and product architect in 2008.
• Tesla first built an electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster, in 2008, with sales of about 2,500 vehicles to 31 countries. Tesla began delivery of its Model S in June 2012.
• The Model X, announced in February 2012, was launch September 2015.
• In July 2016, Gigafactory 1 was opened near Reno, NV. Gigafactory 1 produces 35 GWh/year of batteries. In 2019, Musk opened Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory.
• In 2016, Tesla began developing Autopilot in-house after dropping Mobileye.
• In 2019, Musk unveiled the Tesla Cybertruck with commercial production in 2021.
• As of 2020, the Tesla Model 3 is the world’s best-selling electric car (500,000 units).
• In 2016, Musk owned about 28.9M Tesla shares, equal to 22% of the company.
• In 2006, Musk co-founded SolarCity, which his cousins. By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States.
• In 2012, Musk announced that SolarCity and Tesla would collaborate to use electric vehicle batteries to smooth the impact of rooftop solar on the power grid.
• Tesla acquired SolarCity for over $2 billion in 2016 as its solar division
• In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology start-up company to integrate the human brain with AI. These enhancements could improve memory or allow more direct interfacing with computing devices.
• After being stuck in traffic, he founded The Boring Company to create traffic tunnels.
• A tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center was completed in early 2020.
• In 2013, Musk unveiled Hyperloop, a concept for high-speed transportation system reduced-pressure tubes in which capsules ride on an air cushion.
• In December 2015, Musk announced OpenAI, a not-for-profit AI research company. OpenAI wants to keep large corporations from gaining too much power with AI.
• Musk is chairman of the Musk Foundation to provide solar-power energy systems in disaster areas as well as other goals. Since 2002, he has made over 350 contributions.
• In 2020, Musk has become the world’s richest person, as his net worth crossed $185B, taking the top spot from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
• Musk does not really care about money. He is an engineer. He has sold all of his home so he can live a simply life and continue inventing.

 

How often do you have to change the 12V battery in a passenger car?

Unanswerable without a lot more information. First is where you live. Warm weather is what does the most damage to batteries. So why do people in the north always blame cold weather for being the cause of their battery failure? Because the heat of the summer damages the battery and the extra stress of starting the car in the cold pushes it over the edge. On average, batteries last one to two years longer in the colder regions than in the hot south. So the average temperature where you live could have an extreme affect on how long your battery will last. Next is battery CCA (Cold Cranking Amps). CCA is the measurement of how much work a battery can do during the starting process. Starting a car will draw more electricity from the battery then anything else it will ever be required to do. The higher the CCA the more power the battery can deliver. So if you have a car that requires a 500 CCA battery and you install a 750 CCA battery it will not work as hard to start the engine and will last longer. But if your car requires a 500CCA battery and you install a 250 CCA battery that battery will struggle and wear out much faster. Then comes RC (Reserve Capacity) which determines how long a battery can maintain a small load, like computer memory, and still maintain a minimum voltage. The higher the RC rating the longer the battery can maintain the various loads applied to it when the car isn’t running and still be able to start the car. A low RC rating could mean the battery goes dead while sitting and that is very stressful on the battery and causes shortened life. There are also differences in battery types which must match the requirements of the vehicle. Wrong battery type, shorter battery life. How many times the battery is discharged to where it won’t start the car or deep cycled to where it won’t light the lights. The more discharges and the deeper the discharges the shorter the life of the battery. How well your charging system works. If the voltage isn’t kept within a tight range the battery will likely overcharge and fail prematurely. Dirty (electrically dirty) battery cable connections are a common cause of over charging. Physically dirty battery cases are another cause of overcharging. Other things that affect the life of a battery are: if the car was reprogrammed when a new battery was installed (applies to some but not all cars), was the heat shield replaced with the new battery or thrown in the trash because it is a pain to reinstall, the number of times the car is started over the life of the battery, how difficult the car is to start, etc., etc. So battery life 2 years to 10 years but the average is 3 to 4 years.

Time machine interview Redline Si-1

Time Machine Radio!

Another episode of the nutz&boltz radio show

The great time machine strikes again!

Another episode of the Nutz&boltz radio show

Continuity

Time machine radio

Another episode of the nutz&bolts radio show from over 10 years ago!

Monthly question for Jan 2021-Answered!

Lesson in Electronics: Be Better Than Basic

 

Profiles in the Automotive industry:John J. Mooney, an Inventor of the Catalytic Converter

 

 John Joseph Mooney (April 6, 1930 – June 16, 2020) was an American chemical engineer who was co-inventor of the three-way catalytic converter, which has played a dramatic role in reducing pollution from motor vehicles since their introduction in the mid-1970s.

While serving in the United States Army from 1955 to 1956, Mooney was assigned to a series of nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean at Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands, which included 17 atom bomb and two hydrogen bomb tests. Mooney was as close as 7½ miles from fission bomb tests.[1]

Mooney came to Engelhard in 1960, after graduate school, as a result of a connection made in an electrochemical engineering course. He worked at the company's Gas Equipment Division. Among his first tasks there were purification of hydrogen, purification and catalysis of ammonia into hydrogen and nitrogen and a process for using a ruthenium catalyst to produce hydrogen from liquid ammonia for the United States Air Force. As a result, the Air Force was able to easily supply hydrogen for weather balloons, since it was more efficient to ship liquid ammonia to distant locations than cylinders of gas.

The 1970 amendments to the Clean Air Act required significant reductions in hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. The converters available at the time were oxidation catalysts, which could handle hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide, but were ineffective in reducing nitrogen oxides. Car manufacturers and catalyst companies were trying to develop a multiple step process that would address hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide in one process while reducing nitrogen oxides in another.

Chemist Carl D. Keith and Mooney with their team at Engelhard came up with the first production catalytic converter in 1973. The three-way catalyst developed by them allowed all three exhaust pollutants (hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides) to be remedied using a single catalyst bed. Their solution to addressing the variations in air/fuel mixtures was to combine rare-earth oxides and base metal oxide components in the catalyst together with Platinum and Rhodium in a ceramic honeycomb with tiny passages coated with the catalytic material. This design ensured that the oxygen needed in the reactions was absorbed when it was in excess and released when it was needed, allowing all three pollutants to be removed in a single catalytic component. The three-way catalytic converter reduces nitrogen oxides to nitrogen and oxygen, oxidizes carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide and oxidizes unburnt hydrocarbons to carbon dioxide and water.

Jan 2021 Monthly quiz in Audio format!

 

This month's question comes from an old nutz & boltz radio show