With just a bit more effort and not much more expense, you can keep your car’s battery in tiptop shape with a few tools.The lure of adding the battery to the easy tasks of keeping things tight is that you may be able to avoid being stranded because the heart of your electrical system went dead.To do the battery job thoroughly, you’ll need one tool, two sprays, and a tester.
The One Battery Tool – Terminal cleaners come in a couple of different styles, depending on the design of the battery in your car.What these cleaners do is scrape away a thin layer of metal from the terminal posts and from the battery cables to ensure excellent contact between them.Don’t worry about sparking.Battery terminals are soft lead, so there is no danger of sparking during the cleaning process.As long as you do not see corrosion, there is little need to remove the battery cables from the battery and clean them.But corrosion can spring up quickly.If it does, you’ll be prepared. Read the rest of this entry »
Although modern manufacturing has remove any piston valve tinkering from the list of DIY car care, I’ll outline here how the auto’s four-stroke cycle solves the problems of internal combustion. At the top of the cylinder is a pair of valves.The valve that lets the fuel in is called the ‘intake’ valve.The one that lets out the exhaust, the by-product of the explosion, is called the ‘exhaust’ valve.A cylinder and its valves manipulate pressure in two ways that are no more sophisticated than what a small child at play might do.Remember sucking on the end of a Coke bottle until all the air inside was gone and your lips were pulled into the opening?All at once, a small leak developed and a tiny stream of air would rush in, making a squeaky noise and tickling your lips.What you did by drawing all the air out of the bottle was to create a vacuum.When the small leak around your lips inevitably developed, it wasn’t the empty bottle drawing air back in, it was the normal pressure of the air around us – 15 pounds per square inch – pushing its way back in.And every child at some time discovers the joys of blowing up a balloon and releasing it with the end untied.The compressed air forces its way out of the opening, the area of least resistance.Part of the genius of the four-stroke engine is its use of pressure and vacuum.Pressure and vacuum are keys to the success of the engine’s four strokes: intake, compression, firing (power), and exhaust.
The First Stroke: The Intake Stroke – The first stroke of the cycle is the intake stroke.The crankshaft, located directly below the cylinders on some cars and below and between the cylinders on others, turns and begins to pull the piston down the length of the cylinder.As the piston begins to pull the piston down the cylinder, it forms a vacuum.The intake valve opens when the piston begins its downward movement, and air and fuel are drawn into the void.The engine is designed to time the intake with the downward travel of the piston so that the whole time the piston moves downward; the air/fuel mixture is filling the vacuum in the cylinder.The intake valve shuts when the piston is at the bottom of the cylinder.This is called the first stroke.
The Second Stroke: The Compression Stroke – The crankshaft continues to spin, forcing the piston to rise, compressing the particles of gasoline and air now in the cylinder from the intake stroke.This compression of the air and fuel mixture will create a more forceful explosion.This is called the compression stroke.The compression stroke ends when the piston has returned to its position at the top of the cylinder.
The Third Stroke: The Firing Stroke – At the finish of the compression stroke, a spark from the spark plug, located near the top of the cylinder where the fuel and air are mixed and compressed, ignites the fuel and air mixture.The fuel explodes and the hot gases expand, forcing the piston down the cylinder – the path of least resistance.This turns the crankshaft and gives the car the power to move forward.
The Fourth Stroke: The Exhaust Stroke – When the piston reaches the bottom of the firing stroke, the exhaust valve opens.And as the crankshaft forces the piston to move back up the cylinder, the exhaust gas is pushed out or the opening covered during the other three strokes by the exhaust valve.
If you are not mechanically minded, the preceding four-stroke description probably makes sense to you.But if you like to think about how a thing works, you’ve probably got a few questions, such as: What opens the valves? And what happens if the valves don’t open at exactly the right time?Simply put, at the end of the crankshaft is a gear.That gear meshes with a gear on another shaft called a camshaft.On the camshaft and beneath each valve is a teardrop-shaped cam lobe.The piston turns (powers) the crankshaft with every firing stroke, and the crankshaft not only powers the car, it also powers the camshaft.And the cam lobes, positioned above each valve, push the valves open each time the camshaft rotates and the cam lobe touches the valve stem.The proper alignment of the gears keeps the engine firing to provide maximum power.As simple as it all is, it still seems mind-boggling to most DIY car care persons.All that power, all that speed from something as simple as an explosion in a can.
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