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mws
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Posts posted by mws
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What is it, something like 30 million wind turbines to equal the power output of 1 nuke? Well, that is (probably) a bit of an exaggeration, but not as much as I wish.
My point is, it will take a whole freaking LOT of them. And someone will have to pay to build them. Ideally, it should be funded by all of us under the auspices of our federal government, but it is busy spending all of our money (and then even a whole bunch more!) on other things.
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The last time I researched ethanol, it required refinining and consuming almost 1.5 gallons of petroleum based fuel to produce 1 gallon of ethanol - between the fuel to power the equipment to grow and harvest the corn and then the biggy - the fuel to power the ethanol production facility. It takes a lot of electricity to produce ethanol, and the power plants near the corn are largely oil burning. And even if we invested billions in a new infrastructure it would still cost more than gasoline. By about $5 or $6 per gallon for gasoline it becomes viable. With billions invested in infrastructure, of course. Unfortunately, all the money that could be used for that is being used to make some kind of point in Iraq.
This explains why it is so slow to take off in the US. It takes more fuel to produce than it provides. That fact is commonly ignored by those wishing it wasn't true.
As I understand it, to be a viable option in the US we need massive amounts of near free (and definitely not petroleum based!) sources of electricity. I suspect this is why Bush is pushing for new nuclear facilities. A couple/few big-A nuclear facilities in the middle of Kansas and Nebraska would make ethanol very viable for the midwest! And makes a lot of sense - if you are able to ignore the negative ramifications of nuclear power. The other options are many, many, many new hydroelectric plants (which wouldn't be anywhere near the corn supply) or more coal fired plants - which are notoriously environmentally unfriendly.
I believe most of the countries that are mentioned as big users of ethanol have huge quantities of free byproducts to use as raw materials (not commercially growing corn for $$$ to use), massive government subsidies, and/or lots of nukes.
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Nice!
Do you think there would be room to fit one of the double filter set ups in there?
Not that I need double the filtering capacity, but since the big-A Ford filters hold almost a quart each, it would add another significant increase in oil capacity over stock. And help cooling a touch as well.
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I vary my oil changes based on the application and conditions. The enemies to the engine are DIRT, ACID contamination from combustion chamber blow by and WATER condensation from start ups.
In our street driven BMW, the oil is still slightly translucent after 15K miles, so I have no problem running the Mobil 1 for 15K miles. Many studies indicate I could push it as much as 30K miles, but I choose not to. That engine has 180K miles and is as strong as ever.
In the tow van, I change the Mobil 1 every 5K miles because it gets worked very hard. Still translucent and looks good, but I ask a lot of the oil so I choose to change frequently.
But in the Pathy, the oil is usually opaque and black after just 5K miles. That is mostly due to blow by in the more worn out engine (also only 180K miles, but clearly not in as good of condition as the BMW!), which means lots of acids and crap getting into the oil. And dust from offroading. So I change the Mobil 1 in it every 3 to 10K miles depending on how it's being used.
If mostly highway miles, 10K miles before changing. If mostly in town, 5K miles. If offroading, every 3K (or even less if driving out in the alkali laden and sandy Nevada desert!)
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I asked a bunch of the hot-rodder and classic muscle car types around my town who they recommended.
They all recommended a guy who ran his own small, nondescript, hard to find one man shop. I purchased a Dynomax universal high flow 2.5" catalytic converter and 2.5" core Dynomax muffler through Summit for under $150 delivered. Took those in to him and he bent and welded up an incredibly beautiful and perfectly fitting 2.5" system for under $200. It literally fit better than the stocker. And the welds are works of art.
With enough looking around, you will find a similar guy in your town.
In my experience, there is really no sense in using clamps - just have them weld it together to assure no leaks. Clamps usually rust up within a couple years and end up as permanent as welding and require cutting out anyway.
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Oh, and I've had VERY good luck with JB Weld to seal plastic and aluminum gasoline containers. Much better than I expected. I expected the epoxy to be attacked and softened by one or more of the multitude of chemicals and solvents in the gasoline, but it lasted for years and years. I would imagine it would work equally well on steel.
Clean around the hole VERY thoroughly (I sanded and then cleaned with brake parts cleaner) and glob the JB on. For extra strength, lay some fiberglass cloth over the JB and glob more on.
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Welding on tanks is very risky if done sloppily. With enough care and thought, quite doable and safe. But most shops will just refuse. Keep in mind that gasoline VAPORS are extremely, extremely, flammable - way more so than gasoline liquid.
If the entire interior is all rusted up and the pinholes are due to rust through, it is verrrry difficult to save it. Your only hope is to have it internally stripped and coated - or replace it. I used a coating called Cream about 20 years ago on a motorcyle tank - it actually worked quite well. But, it required the tank to be cleaned out with MEK to get it clean enough. Since MEK is no longer commonly available, tese days I would turn it over to a professional to do the job.
If holes are due to crushing or punctures, there is hope. The pros clean it out thoroughly (steam clean or boil it out), then fill it with an inert gas (nitrogen is most common, argon is good as well) and keep it purging while welding.
In my garage, I cleaned it out with everything I could think of until there was absolutely no gasoline odor. I pulled the sending unit out so there were two large holes. Then I let it sit out in the sun a couple days to assure any vestiges of gasoline evaporated. Since I didn't have any inert gas at the time, I hooked the hose from the exhaust port of my shop vac to the filling neck and continuously pumped huge volumes of air through while I MIG welded. The constant high volume of air flowing through was to assure that if any gasoline vapor did materialize, it was very rapidly diluted and blown away.
Took a lot of prep work, but I'm still here!
I've been told that filling with water is also an option, but I'd think the tank still needs to be thoroughly cleaned first - or else the remaining air pockets could fill with gasoline vapors. Small booms would still hurt.
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I highly recommend bolt on spacers/stand off blocks. Again, let me know if you want my input...
B
Want you input? Heck, some of us are still waiting for your experience and skill to be applied and whip up a set for us!
Yeah, I know you're way too busy these days... I can so relate!
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All good stuff...
One thing I would add - I found mounting my trans coolers with the outlet to the bottom (as shown on 88's) resulted in an air bubble catcher. Any little air bubble that entered the cooler rose to the top stayed in the cooler. Eventually, the cooler was pretty much full of air, greatly reducing it's effectiveness.
By rotating the coolers 90 (or 180) degrees so the outlet tube is at the top, they become self purging. The location of the inlet doesn't matter.
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Pulled the covers off the air plenums off both of my Chevy vans. Guess what? They were both PACKED full with debris.... Fortunately, the resistor pack is located elsewhere in the ducting so less fire risk.
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I hope he's GIVING you those samples. Making you pay for them would be bad form. I mean, ripping off a stranger is one thing, but ripping off a "friend"? Not good.
Oh, and if you consider him a friend, teach him how to release the parking brake. That's the only way I could imagine 12 mpg in an unloaded Ford diesel on the highway.
Oh, in case you can't tell, I too have been around enough to recognize snake oil marketing, and have the engineering education to identify BS on sight.
Yup. This be it!
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Readings on gas gauges are pretty meaningless.... They vary wildly.
The only way to get meaningful numbers is to calculate mpg from fillup to fillup.
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Here's the simple solution: Sell the new pathy and get an old one AND a fuel sipper.
In our case, '87 Pathy ($500 to buy and $1500 to put into top notch condition) and '95 BMW 318is ($8000 to buy 6 years ago).
Both run great and are reliable as rocks!
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I've done quite a few over the years. All but one came out perfectly.
A key is condition - I've found that if there is ANY pitting on the sides of the piston or bore, it can be a pretty futile fight to get them working perfectly and not leak. You can hone REAL small pits out of the cylinder, but pitting on pistons? Just replace.
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The first thing I would check is what P suggested - rotate the driveshaft 180 degrees. They had to take one of the u-joints loose - remove it again and rotate 180. MOST of the time it won't make any difference, but sometimes it will!
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Thanks!
The charcoal canister won't noticeably affect fuel economy one way or the other (functioning or fully bypassed). Having it functional MIGHT increase mpg by .0001% or so, but that's about it.
All it does is absorb the evaporating gas vapors from the fuel tank when the truck sits. Without it, your truck will tend to smell like a gas station on hot days (as anybody who has owned an older car can attest to!). That's why I keep mine intact and functioning - I hate the stink.
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I've had remarkably good luck gluing plastic together with, of all things, JB Weld! Clean the parts thoroughly with electrical cleaner, and give it a try. Glob as much JB as you can, and if possible, shove some kind of reinforcetment into the epoxy as well.
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Do us a favor and do a "before" and "after" mpg comparison.
I've heard 1 to 2 mpg impact at highway speeds.
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Talk to the folks at a fiberglass supply place. There are special foams that are resistant to the resins. Many foams will dissolve so you have to use the right stuff. We used to use florists foam for building plugs to make molds - but it comes in solid blocks and not injectable.
Here's a good source for materials and knowledge - been around for decades.
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I wouldn't toss it just yet - until you get it smog tested with the box missing.
In CA, you would automatically fail the visual test if the box is missing.
And if I understand how it operates, it may have been working even with the hole. It's possible it was just injecting unfiltered air instead of clean air...
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For gods sake, will someone just take the plunge and install these so we can say this ridiculous fad has peaked and achieved complete disfunctionality and can FINALLY be put to bed?
http://www.wagons-wheels.com/antiquewheel.html
Please?
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If you want the repair to be good looking and hard to notice, you really have no choice but to have a metal craftsman form and weld in new sheet metal.
If you just want to plug the holes and stop the cancer and really DON'T care what it looks like, you can patch it up yourself with minimal skills or expense.
- grind off ALL evidence of rust,
- coat the inside of the panel with POR-15 to stop the rust from continuing to spread on the inside.
- shoot some 2 part expanding foam into the cavity (foam that is compatible with resin!)
- shape the surface of the foam so it looks kinda like what the metal used to look like.
- Lay a couple layers of fiberglass over the top.
Depending how well you did, it may (or may not) look like h#!!, but it will stop the rust and let you drive it for a few more years.
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That.... that's not even funny!
BAD Trainman, BAD!
ethanol?
in General Forums
Posted · Edited by mws
A blurb on Brazilian nukes and future plans:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2006/2006-05-08-04.asp
In the middle, it mentions plans to build seven more.