Hot Rods I learn something new every day

While my daughter and I were at the recent Nashville swap meet, she found an original 1946 Ford, Mercury and truck service manual and surprised me with it when we got home. I didn't have a chance to look at it thoroughly until this morning and was amazed at the difference in technical writing between then and now. I'm attaching a pic of page 168. In the last line in the section about rust inhibitors, we are admonished to never use honey in our cooling systems. I suppose we can't use artificial sweeteners either. The things I never knew!

 

weird

 

Who knew?!

 

Honey goes on biscuits and sopapillas.

 

That's a new one on me. Maybe it worked as a sealant or stop-leak ... . ?

 

I used to work with a old Swedish guy years ago and he told me when he was a young man in Sweden in World War II there was a total shortage of antifreeze for the citizen population. They had to get inventive and people would run straight diesel fuel in their cooling systems and it worked quite well . He wasn’t much of a bullshitter has anyone else ever heard of anything like this?

 

How 'bout bananas to quiet the differential gears?

 

Sounds better than the old hamburger story.

 

Sounds like they were pushing back against popular home remedies, myths, and legends.

 

Does it work better than sawdust?

 

I don't know. I've shredded a lot of cigarettes and put the tobacco into leaking radiators for a pretty effective temporary stop back when I was dirt tracking.

 

Kerosene. Trashes the hoses quickly though. Diesel would "work" too. I've never heard of using honey or sugar, though anything that lowered the freeze point and prevented engine block damage was considered OK. Gotta make do with what ya got.

Ethylene glycol alone will freeze around +10° F., it actually requires mixing with water for extended freeze protection. 50/50 is good to -34° F. I tried to explain this to somebody once and they thought I was smoking my socks.

 

My dad knew a guy who drove a Model A back in the late 40's with a leaky radiator. Too poor to fix it, and way to poor to buy anti-freeze. He said the old guy ran coal oil (kerosene) in it. It was cheap, and worked good for way the old man drove.

 

Honey is too expensive now.

 

That could be a pretty long list of things you shouldn't put in your radiator. Surprising that they stopped there. Lol

 

That original sweet boil over smell.

 

now for something totally different to learn: Sears, K-Mart, Kenmore, Diehard, etc where just sold to TransformCO

 

That may seem odd to you younger guys but for those of us in our 70's or older who knew a lot of folks who were driving in the 20's, 30's and during WWII it makes perfect sense as those guys did use some strange concoctions as antifreeze or anti leak.
I heard the Kerosene and or Diesel thing from several sources when I was young. Heard the tobacco to plug a radiator leak up into the 70's and it usually involved a sack of Bull Durham. I heard the black pepper to plug leaks from a lot of sources over the years but never tried either.

 

the pro demolition derby guys[yes there IS such a thing}are using oil instead of coolant now-plus their is a few diesels {portable air compressors] that are cooled by oil instead of water

 

Well it wouldn't have to be 4 gallons worth of pure Sue Bee Clover honey, just a dilute solution is necessary. How dilute? Ford doesn't say here.

Any Chemistry brain (not me) could probably do the math, and crunch the numbers. Maybe it would need to be quite a lot though? A sugar, or Molasses, or corn syrup solution as the percentage rises it would lower the freeze point. I guess.

 

Used black pepper once on the advice of a roadside “mechanic”.
Sorta worked.

 

Lots of stuff that was used to not freeze up in the winter. In '46 you were dealing with people who did not have the same access to stop leaks and additives as we do today.

My grandpa told me when I was getting close to old enough to get my own vehicle (around 12 or 13 I think) that if I had a Model T I could use oatmeal for stop leak. But not a Model B or newer because that had pressurized cooling systems and it would blow the seams out on the radiator. On pressurized cooling system you had to use an egg or pepper for stop leak. LOL

 

Yeah, but when you show up at the dealer complaining because your cooling system is clogged with tobacco, they're gonna edit the Owner's Manual again.

 

My father had a volkswagon diesel that developed an injector leak. He spotted it and brought it in for repair . It was repaired but the service manager refused to change the diesel soaked lower radiator hose.
It blew out on the Long Island Expressway during rush hour, cost vw a new motor. Might of been the worst pos he ever had.

 

"the pro demolition derby guys[yes there IS such a thing}are using oil instead of coolant now"

That's pretty surprising, you'd think in this day and age the venue wouldn't want gallons of oil dumped on the ground during every derby.

Reading the old books and memoirs of the old timers, it was pretty common to simply drain the water out of the rad at night, and in the morning boil a pot on the stove to refill the car. People had more time then, I guess.

 

Beanscoot, I never heard of boiling water and dumping it in the engine in the morning but in the Model T days Dad said they drained the oil out and took it inside and poured it back in the engine in the morning. Hard to crank a T up in the morning with cold oil in the trans even with a rear wheel jacked up. And in the Army it was SOP to use black pepper to sometimes plug a small leak in aluminum tank radiators. Worked on a small leak. At least to get back to base. Lippy

 

My dad will be 90 in may, he told me when he was a kid they used heating oil in the cooling systems in the winter on the milk trucks.

 

I used to do demo derby also.. yes guys would run no rads and block filled with gear oil.

 

we learn something new every day until the time comes when we forget something old every day.

 

Kool on your daughter.....I like books/manuals and buy them a lot....still stuff in there that helps you just can't find on the internet !