What the heck is a whistle test?

I like this part. Talk about a recipe for disaster. 100 lb air pressure x 12.56 (area of a 4" bore) = 1256 lb of force. Try holding this with a wrench!

 

I have never heard of a whistle test but I do know there are a lot of whistle heads on the HAMB. Maybe one of them will know.

Sounds like something that an unscrupulous engine builder may use to pad the bill.

 

Yea x2

I had a big debate about the effects of 125 psi air pressure on a 4" ball inside a concrete pump hose to clean it. Dip shit tried to believe there was 125 pounds of pressure on the ball.

I did all the math for him, calculated the muzzle velocity, and projected the force and estimated distance the thing would fly. But dimpling still argued with me about this and hotly argued his point.

 

Sun machines with leak down gauges had whistle adapters to find tdc.

 

In response to post by tb33anda3rd - That's too funny.

 

...+1

 

Don't forget the metric adjustable! Oh! And don't forget to have the newbie check the turn signal fluid.

 

This is the brand I use because it's DOT approved.

 

I think it goes back to the days of steam locomotives, possibly. When brought into the loco shop or round-house for maint, repair, rebuild. The whistles may have been the last thing tested before the papers where signed off on. In other words, passed the whistle test, good to go. Just a thought, from someone who worked out of a loco shop for many yrs.

 

We would send them out for a baseboard ladder or a brass magnet

 

Ah So...again it's a generational thing with a computer involved.

Now to get back to the original posters question, the whistle test was commonly used to find top dead center especially in combination with the cylinder leakage tester where you needed to get each cylinder at TDC to do the leakage test (my generation). It was also useful to verify that the timing mark on a harmonic balancer was where it belonged and the rubber torsional section of the balancer was not failing and allowing the outer section to be displaced rotationally.

Was there also a need for the whistle with the compression ratio and/or displacement testers utilized at the race tracks and/or any other test I may be unaware of?

If not, this thread should end since his question is answered and the thread seems to be a harbor for non pertinent responses.

 

If not, this thread should end since his question is answered and the thread seems to be a harbor for non pertinent responses.



Man , what buzz kill

 

wow, sorry for trying to help

 

Wow! Who pissed in your cornflakes?

 

I am impressed. There is a lot of good information to be gained by this test which is not that difficult to perform. Thanks for the tip.

 

If you suspect a part is bad, throw it into the garbage can from across the shop. If it whistles as it flies through the air it's bad. If it doesn't whistle it's no good.

 

it's the professionalism i respect.

 

That is what I was going to post!

 

genes?

 

HAH! I still do that to the new guys, Im a Crewchief on the F16's at Luke AFB my favorite is still when we get a new guy straight from his tech school we send him to get their boots NDI 'd (non destructive inspectors, who use a x-ray machine to evaluate cracks in the aircraft and evaluate the depth. FYI) so the newbie walks down to the NDI lab and the NDI guys will take the new guys boots in the back and give them back and tell them they have to walk the 1/4 mile back to the squadron with their boots above their head, so they dont get radiation near their abdomen....they look like idiots when they comeback with their bare feet and boots above their head...lol

 

Since this has gotten so far off track, I may as well tell mine. We had a bunch of track burners for accurate flame cutting thick steel for long distances. These all operated off of natural gas rather than acetylene. The new guys always had a hell of a time dialing them in not knowing that you had to step up the natural gas as you stepped up the oxygen. They would always complain to me about it. After awhile I started telling the annoying guys that that was a sure sign that the natural gas bottle needed changing, and they'd better get it done before the lead instructor found out. They'd eagerly grab their adjustable, and ask me where it was at. I'd calmly tell them that they could just follow the yellow painted pipe on the wall all the way to the "natural gas cylinder". I wouldn't see most of them for hours, and when they came back they always had a story about some mysterious part of the building they had found. Good times.

 

I seem to recall doing that to the newbies....... That "echo test" is a new one,....

4TTRUK

 

I might as well contribute to the effort towards getting this thread closed (I consider it a special skill of mine), by posting something witty (by my estimation) and alarmingly off-topic (by anyone's estimation).

In the Air Force, we had these massive generators, on wheels, on the flight line....the size of a minivan.

We'd tell the newbies that they had to be push-started and you'd see these guys pushing these big suckers down the flight line, trying to get them up to the "minimum speed" of 15 mph.

 

Funny stuff! Worst I did was having the new guys in the shop filling the water fountains with a 5 gallon bucket. But they never whistled at the fountain. Does that make it on topic?

 

Just here to increase my post count on another thread of great info! Carry on!
Jay

 

With the piston around midstroke the effective radius = approximately stroke/2 (0.145 feet for a 350 chevy) so torque would be 1256x0.145= 180 lb-feet.

If the piston is real close to TDC the force is straight down the con rod, thru the crank into the main bearings. the effective radius = zero, so resulting torque at crank is 1256 lbs X 0.00 ft radius = zero torque. Even if the crank is at 5 degrees the radius is about .05 inch or .005 feet, so the torque is 6 lb-ft.
It amazes me that engines make much torque because when the pressure is high, there is so little useful radius, and by the time the radius is max, the piston is halfway down the bore, and the chamber volume is 5X greater, so the pressure is 1/5 as high.

http://www.modularfords.com/attachm...vs-boost-pressure-cyl-pressure-comparison.jpg

 

Used to send the new kids up to the parts counter for a can of compression. Parts dept didnt miss a beat & would send him back with a can. Getting them to fall for blinker fluid was a bit harder. Never forget the service writer that told a lady customer she needed blinker fluid (he was serious). Her husband came back later & was pretty hot.

 

It is a term used in Fire Service Maintenance Shops. The Centrifugal Pumps may have had a "Primer" using the Whistle Vale rather than a Vacuum Diaphragm system. We did "Whistle Vale Tests on pump primers (if they were equipped with one) during our annual "In service Pump Service Test" inspection. Some of these engines are 60 years of age and we have to keep them going. Hale, Watrousd, Darley and American marsh all offer a Whistel valev Primer system. It is oil lubricated to seal the rotary gears and help keep the inlet pump suction working when an air bubble passes through the pump. Centrifugal pumps will not pump air like a Rotary Vane or Gear pump will.
Normbc9

 

We used to send the new guys on the construction sites all over for the "sky hook" when we were hoisting equipment. Backfired on a buddy of mine one day when an apprentice saw those words written on the boom of a mobile crane in the morning on the way to work, a few hours later the crane showed up....usually about $185/hr crane time ...ouch!