Technical How things can go wrong !

I hope ur friend bought u a steak and case of ur favorite beer (or what ever u drink) BC that saved him a ton of cash, it's always good to check flow but my question is why didn't ur friend the owner check the flow himself if all these guys are engine gurus? Nice job finding the problem I never put a water pump on until the engine goes on even if I fire it up on a stand I will drain everything pull the pump and tape the water holes up on the block BC of something similar happening to my dad and older brother so I never have anything in the motor until I put the anti freeze in it lol always feels good when u finally figure out a problem that guys that are suppose to be better than u lol, jmo hotrod harry


Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app HotRod Harry

 

I guess you missed the little thing about him being out of state and the car in others possession. We tried last Christmas when he was in town and the car was at the engine builders and that individual would not answer the phone.

He will be back again in July, he will drive his car.

 

Oh yes, I'll return to my earlier story about the wadded up plastic shopping bag in the water pump inlet. It didn't stay there. It made it's way into the impellers where it danced around like a potato in a garbage disposal and made hash browns out of it(at least that's how I envision it). Well, the now ground up studs made their way thru the entire cooling system (luckily only the engine, 2 hoses and radiator) until they finally clogged the arteries to the heart of the cooling system. I didn't discover this for about a week but all the while I was scratching my head as to why a brand new 4 core radiator would make my car run warmer than normal. It wasn't until a few shreds of plastic that began to appear and still no clue. Then it hit me, THE #&%*'n SHOPPING BAG !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nope, I was the only cook here.

 

Back in the ‘80s I regularly attended the Portland Swap Meet along with a big bunch of pals; these guys worked at various shops in Ballard, all of them seasoned ASE certified master mechanics. One year, on the last day, one of the guys bought a ’57 Desoto for $300. The experts spent a collective couple hours going over it, meticulously making everything right for the drive back to Seattle. They’re doing it all—replacing hoses, adjusting brakes, cleaning plugs, resetting points. The works.

We set out in a convoy—me at the wheel of the newly acquired “Christine”—and of course got separated almost immediately. So now it’s just me and Christine chugging up I-5 on one of those rare, HOT April days, and the temp gauge kept climbing and climbing…

With the temp needle almost pegged I pull off at a gas station. No tools and no ASE certified master mechanics in sight—just me, a guy who can’t even figure out how to release the hood on a ’57 DeSoto. Eventually I had to lie down on the concrete and worm my way under the grill so I could get a look at the hood latch mechanism and…. What the…?!?!?

The fix was so simple I didn’t even need to open the hood. Two minutes later I was on the road.

Eventually we me met up at a rest stop, and the guys start flipping me shit about being so stupid that I could get “lost” on the freeway. I hold up a hand. “Hey, before we go there, can you tell me how four f**cking pro mechanics can spend two hours prepping a car for a road trip and not notice a sheet of cardboard lashed across the radiator?”

Yep, the problem was somebody's DIY winterfront on a hot day. I guess they don’t teach that in tech school.

 

I agree- seems something like this always happens when too many people are working on one project.

 

I beg to differ there.
There was just one man involved with that radiator hose.

A Good team with a good leader using open and effective communication can accomplish much. Happens on a daily basis here.

 

No S#!T ---Totally Man

 

Can't argue that. I notice that whoever plumbed the cooling system didn't troubleshoot/solve it...

 

Always a problem when too many people are involved. Everybody thinks it was something the other guy did.

I never liked to use the plugs that go in the holes because they are difficult to see. A cap that goes over the outside is much easier to see than one that goes inside, especially with the engine in the car.

Troubleshooting is really a lost art. We had a new engine installed in a John Deere loader by the dealer. The injector pump seal kept going out. They came out pulled the pump, had the seal replaced and re-installed the pump. A few weeks later it would start leaking again. The repaired the pump twice then replaced it with a new one which also leaked.

I asked the tech if he checked the pressure and he said the pump had been checked. The return was connected to the injector return on the head. I looked for a spot to connect a pressure gauge and found a cap at the other end of the head. I was about to figure out a gauge setup when it hit me that there should be a line to the fuel tank connected to that fitting. There is no return to the tank if there is nothing connected to the tank. I started at the fuel tank, followed the lines and found the return. They had removed and plugged it when they removed the engine and never connected it on the new one.

 

I had a guy give me an air filter. It was one of those Cal Custom 14" chrome housings and it looked brand new. He said someone had given it to him because it ran like crap on their car. My bud tried it and it ran like crap on his car, too, so he gave it to me.

I tried it on my car and it also ran like crap. I took it back off a laid it upside down on the work bench and saw the problem imediately. The original owner had replaced the 2" air filter with one about 1 1/4" tall for hood clearance. The housing was designed for looks, not performance, and the top was concave. The bottom was shaped to clear a Holley carb so it rose up between the filter and the carb. What resulted was the effective opening for air passage was about 6" around and about 1/2" tall. It was choking the flow something awful.

A 2 1/2" filter made it work ok but it never ran like a 14" air cleaner should.

 

It's obvious who did it. It was Murphy!

 

I know you mean Murphy's law,

Not kidding,
his dog's name was Murphy.

 

Doing the basics and paying attention seems to elude many a person with a Tool Box. Over the years I've found many issues like this. The vehicle owners all seem to make the same basic comment. I can't believe they did that and they came highly recomended seem to be the most common. My last was, my car steer's itself. Yes it was aligned. It was a case of test fit and show and tell, now pay me. A fresh build I-Beam with all the tricks. Car had around 100 miles on it before issue showed up. No one greased the king pins or packed the wheel bearings and it had gone back to both builder and alignment shop several times. Holly Smokes! This was also the same car that only had 2 - 5/16 bolts holding the body to the frame. Oooops!
The Wizzard

 

The danger of expertise is missing the simple stuff. It's too easy to "know" that nobody would be stupid enough to install the radiator hoses without taking the plugs out. The engine builder knows the engine ran fine on his stand, so it can't be the engine. The radiator guy knows his radiator is good. Hoses can't be bad. It has to be something else. It always has to be something else.

The best troubleshooters are the ones that can put aside what the know to be true and actually go check the simple things that can't possibly be wrong.

Whenever I get to thinking that whatever problem I'm hunting has to be something esoteric or complex, I force myself to remember that most problems aren't complex. Most of the time, it's going to be something simple, sometimes something stupidly simple.

As this example shows, divide and conquer works well to force you to look at the symptoms, and reveals what the experts knew couldn't be true.


Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

We Need a double like button ^^^

 

There are way to many Experts that really don't know shit!!! Follow the indications. Just like you did. Eliminate One thing at a time. Trust nothing.

 

You found the cause of the issue with basic troubleshooting, start with the simple and basic stuff first. To bad the other guys could not, or would not take a few minutes to investigate. In the time they probably spent passing the buck, it could have been fixed. Good job on your part, and sorry to hear about your friends dog.

 

Did that to my wifes daily, she let me have it one spring day while at a gas station on I90 overheating

 

I've found that most often confidence will cause the most trouble. I try to work under the pretense that I am human therefore I will make mistakes, that way I know I have to double check everything I do.
When I was a young stud, my wife called me in for supper just as I got some lug nuts finger tight, that turned out to be a let down feeling. LOL

 

The moment that you think you know everything, Is when you know nothing.

 

Yep, forget what everyone else tells you they have done to it (the so-called"experts") and go back to basics. A friend had the "auto electrician" come around to get her car started, he goofed around all afternoon, gave up (and charged her of course), said there were too many electrical problems with this car, best thing is to get rid of it. I thought it can,t be that bad, had a look at it, put the battery in the right way (negative earth), kicked it in the guts and it fired straight away. She drove that car into the ground!.

 

I did it to myself last week. I was finishing up a motor replacement and fighting with a heater hose to water pump nipple install, it just wouldn't go over the nipple, I thought I'd swapped the supply/return hoses and repeatedly rechecked myself until I felt up inside the hose to feel the plug I'd stuck in there when I took it all apart. Doh!

 

Had a friend whos car would overheat at idle but not when driving.Seems the problem was the electric fan was wired backwards and pushing hot engine heat out through the radiator

 

It happens on new stuff, too. In the mid 80's the company I was driving for gave me a new truck. I drove it about a week, then they sent me on a trip up to PA in it. I noticed the driveline seemed to have some slack in it, so I told the owner it needed to go to the shop and be checked. He said, aw, it's a new truck, you just ain't used to it yet. About 50 miles away from home coming back, the driveshaft came out, busting two air bags, tearing out wiring and air lines as well as warping the output shaft on the front rear end. I picked up the pieces while waiting for the tow truck, got to looking at the U joint, it was dry as a bone! Nobody on the assembly line greased it before it went out the door, nobody at the dealership greased it when they prepped the truck for delivery. Mack had to eat that repair, but they didn't replace the output shaft until later, it kept ruining the seals. Finally a good tech checked the shaft instead of just blindly replacing the seal. Somebody didn't do their job, and nobody caught it!

 

I keep waiting for somebody admitting to leaving rags in the oil galley and installing the intake on top of them. Not that I'd ever done it, of course, but a friend did it once.
Any other 'friends' done it?

 

Lord knows I'm no expert but I can mess up just a if I was one. A couple years ago I had to put a radiator in my daily and the fan shroud wouldn't fit. So it was in and out with the shroud until I poked a hole in the core. I found the leak right away and called the supplier with my story. He did me right and sent another one. So the second time I placed the radiator on the ground and spent some time to trim the shroud to fit. I put them together and figured out how to squeeze, bump and angle the shroud/radiator sandwich into the uprights. I wrapped it up, checked for leaks and it all seemed fine but I started having over heating issues. After a few days of that, a neighbor was giving things a look and noticed that the fan wasn't plugged into the harness. I had tucked the pigtail behind the battery to get it out of the way during the second install. The unconventional double install and trimming had filled my head up with frustration until my thinker didn't work and I was no longer qualified to double check my own work.

 

@31Vicky with a hemi I used to think I had seen one of everything, now I am sure I have.

I have actually seen plugs and caps left in place on assembly. But not on the pump yet. The story is common and I have discovered in my time that too many people working on the same project can be a real disaster and everyone is going to claim that they didn't mess up.

Good catch on your part, you did everything right.

 

Happens to the best of us , called out on a service call on a Barge product Pump one night , it was recently remotored but not used .
I had a engine ( detroit diesel 6v-71) that wouldn't start, it would make funny noises ( a loud buzz like a kazooo ( thats how the tankerman described it ) ) and lazily blow black- grey smoke when it cranked , they tried ether, no fire ,
when we rebuild them we put the debris screen over the scavange blower inlet with the cardboard backer over it seal them while they sit in the shop and then put the shutdown hat on and then Red tag it that its sealed and to remove the cardboard .
well.... he /they pulled the red tag when they hooked up the shut down selenoid and didn't read it ,
when I got to it I thought the blower coupler broke , took off the hat to check the rotors for possible debris/jam and low and behold I see cardboard .. removed the cardboard replaced the hat and it fired right up .they were lucky it was a fresh broken in rebuild otherwise they could have had a runaway. 6 hours I lost ( 4 hours drive round trip ) for something the guy ( kid from tech school who is now unemployed ) who installed the unit should have removed and test run before it left port , I double checked it before letting them use it .

 

In 1968, I was lucky enough to be able to buy a '65 GTO with no engine for $500. A few weeks later, I stumbled across a fresh rebuilt 421 out of a Grand Prix for $300. This had all the makings of a good deal. I got the engine installed and running and it ran good and strong, but it would occasionally overheat, boiling violently and pushing water out the overflow like crazy. What was odd is that it wouldn't do it all of the time; sometimes I could take it out for hours and everything would be OK. I had the radiator out several times, and to the shop once. After weeks of frustration, my brother, who had a '64 GTO at the time came over, and we pulled the water pump. He immediately spotted the problem. These cars had a sheet metal baffle behind the water pump, and someone had neglected to put one in. We got one from the dealership and installed it; problem solved. What was so challenging was the sporadic nature of the problem. Several times previously, I thought I had it fixed, but then it would boil, and I would be back to square one.

I was lucky I had my brother, and your buddy's lucky to have you!

 

Somebody left a spare pushrod in the gallery when they assembled my engine. That was before I bought the car. Found it when I pulled the intake to replace the leaking gaskets.


Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app