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Hi,
Thought I'd tell a little story about my adventures last night in case it ever strikes anyone else and saves them some hassle...
Bit of background, I did the front bearings on the HQ last weekend. They were fine, so I regreased them and put them back in again.
Last night was the first long drive after putting them in, so I was intending to stop and check the hubs in case the bearings were too tight, after about 15 minutes. Normal procedure.
So... Got onto the highway, notice the engine temp is very high. Normally this sits on about half, but it was way over 3/4, sometimes close to full. I watched it for a few km, turned off the aircon, manually turned on the thermofan... no difference.
Stopped to take a look. Engine didn't seem particularly hot, which was weird. Spit on the radiator didn't even sizzle. There was water in the overflow, so it's not dry. However, the gauge was around max. Wondered if the bearings were tight enough to be causing the engine to labour?
Went a bit further, temp dropped a little. Still wasn't happy, so pulled into a servo. Checked the hub temps... warm, but not too hot that I couldn't hold my hand against them. There goes the bearing theory. (Also, the engine wasn't labouring when coasting.) Engine still seemed fine. Turned it off for a few minutes.
Turned the engine back on, and as I flicked the interior lights, I noticed the temp gauge and oil pressure gauge kick, much more than normal. Aha!!! Earth fault! And yes, the earth strap from the battery to the body wasn't as tight as it should be. And the temp sender wire wasn't as tight as I would like.
Quick turn of the screwdriver, and a mental note to replace that screw with a bolt and spring washer one day, and it's all sweet again. :-)
Drove another 3/4 hour in total and it sat nicely on half once again the whole way.
Wish all old car problems were this easy to fix!
Cheers,
Jason.
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Rank: Member
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Jason,
Good to hear it was a simple fix!
Just think if you had taken it to several different mechanics, I bet half of them would have changed the radiator, thermostat, waterpump before finding the real fault. Those digital heat sensor guns would reall
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Rank: Member
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Rhys
What is the digital heat sensor gun, haven't heard of that one. I take it we aren't talking about the temp probe on a digital multimeter.
Sounds like a useful sort of tool.
MJ
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Be careful before relying upon these as gospel. They are only really good for relative temperature and even then only for items with comparable emmissivity eg bright copper has an emmissivity of about 0.2, tarnished copper is about 0.8 and matt black pain |
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If we all had the same (good) taste, who would buy all the Fords? |
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Rank: Member
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Joined: 31/10/2006(UTC)
Posts: 31
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I hear what you are saying Byron.
I guess it might only be useful as a comparison between a known good condition and a suspect one at the same location. Would that be right?
What are these devices though...they don't sound like the sort of thing one
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