sure if your cooling system has been neglected or someone changes a coolant gasket and deposits all the old gaskets in the coolant. But if you don't constantly watch the filter it could plug and cause more harm than good. But even a small amount of gasket material ( (its not unusual to get some in there after some repairs )won't clog a radiator. There is no way to look at that glass and say there is sufficient flow. Water pump impellers get partially rusted away and still have some flow. A good visual on the entire cooling system and condition of the coolant is all that is needed. If your system has been compromised to the point that you need a filter you would be foolish to drive the vehicle out in the desert. 40 plus year of being an auto mechanic I never needed sight glass or filter for the coolant.This is the clear perspex filter the students found and want to experiment with https://ganofilters.com
This is what the manufacturer says:
"The Gano Auto Coolant Filter is a patented device that prevents radiator and coolant system damage. It removes rust scale, gasket material and other foreign particles from the cooling system before they can build-up and clog or block radiator cooling tubes. It is also used as a diagnostic tool for analyzing overall coolant system operation by providing a “window” into the over-all flow of coolant. The Gano Filter is an accessory to the cooling system, designed to be installed in the upper radiator hose of your automobile. It is a full flow device, which traps foreign particles thus avoiding radiator repair or replacement due to clogging."
Would be beneficial to get your technical analysis and I will feed that back to the course
"Get me home switch" - list of bypasses
- Thread starter aSTerix
- Start date
Hey, I remember that guy! He had a regular column in Popular Science magazine, which I just mentioned in another thread about extending oil-change intervals with synthetic oil.
Andrew Shadow
Site Supporter
The main reason for the thermostat is to, after getting the engine up to operating temperature quickly, keep the engine operating in a fairly narrow temperature range where it is designed to operate most efficiently. All of the design parameters target that temperature range. The advantages to the heating system are a nice bonus scavenged off of that requirement. Run an engine with an electric radiator fan at normal highway speed with a thermostat that is stuck open in anything less than hot weather and the engine will never reach normal operating temperature until you stop or slow way down and the flow of cool air through the radiator is greatly reduced. It will consume more gas and will not respond as well as it normally does because the engine is running to cool. On older carbureted vehicles this can even lead to fouled spark plugs and the potential problems that brings.
I don't know much about Dubai and having no thermostat probably isn't a problem during the heat of the day. If temperatures drop drastically at night out in the desert like they do in many desert climates, driving a vehicle at those temperature continuously might reveal some drive-ability issues even if they were no more serious than increased fuel consumption.
Yes the engine will run best with a thermostat, but it is not as critical as you imply. Big air cooled engines with fuel injection work fine.
Steve wants to know how to operate in a hot environment and what would be an out of the normal solutions to keep from being stuck in an oven. Even his dealer admits that removing the thermostat is SOP in his area....
Steve wants to know how to operate in a hot environment and what would be an out of the normal solutions to keep from being stuck in an oven. Even his dealer admits that removing the thermostat is SOP in his area....
Would be interested in seeing the adjustable voltage sense feed design that your students come up with.
ST Gui
240Robert
I seem to remember that being Say Smokey in Popular Mechanics magazine. Or at least that's that Great Grandad told me.
He also said that Popular Science had Gus Wilson's Model Garage but his memory isn't all that sharp these days.
You may well be correct. I agree on that being the name of the column.
Andrew Shadow
Site Supporter
They are designed to do so and programmed accordingly.
Water cooled engines are designed to operate efficiently in a much smaller temperature range that is not maintained without a thermostat.
No disagreement. I was responding to your statement about the primary reson for a thermostat and citing an example of why that is so.
Think of air-cooled engines as cold-blooded life, and liquid-cooled engines as warm-blooded life.
Yes couldn't agree more and its good that you bring this up. Later on in the course we do the statistical failure analysis using mtbf and look at the maths behind single point of failure
Thats a very valid point and I will pass that back to the course, appreciate the input
As an aside, what triggered the course to look into an visual observation device was the vast amount of crud that was found in the cooling system, all the small pipes were blocked and this included the expansion bottle feed ! The bike should never have been allowed to get into this state and after the rebuild it it won't so the device is probably unnecessary from a normal motorcycling perspective. From a "seeing how it all works " perspective it will be useful though. The course also want to add a temp sensor to see what the coolant temp is going back into the engine
They have a wide range of ideas for manipulating the sense line ranging from simple switchable diodes through to digitally controlled DC-DC convertors, lots of calculations still to be done but will update when they make final decision. I'm trying to keep them focussed on the "get me home" aim so I suspect this will spin off into a separate project
dried out old antifreeze, the old stuff not the extended life newer antifreeze
Steve, Did you think of putting the basic premise to your students to see what they could decide was best as a group process? Let them take this from the top.
I would put it this way. If we assume that I, the owner of this ST1100 will ride in our country in all weather, and that I want to make the bike as reliable as possible to avoid being stranded, and to have a way to mitigate the things that immobilize the bike, what should we do? The bike is completely apart for major service, money is comparatively no object since most service will be self done, and we want to keep this a motorcycle - adding a sidecar rig with a 50cc motorcycle attached as a 'get home option' is forbidden.
I would put it this way. If we assume that I, the owner of this ST1100 will ride in our country in all weather, and that I want to make the bike as reliable as possible to avoid being stranded, and to have a way to mitigate the things that immobilize the bike, what should we do? The bike is completely apart for major service, money is comparatively no object since most service will be self done, and we want to keep this a motorcycle - adding a sidecar rig with a 50cc motorcycle attached as a 'get home option' is forbidden.
Andrew Shadow
Site Supporter
Curious if there are any plans regarding ignition failure. In years past it was common for people to carry a spare set of points and a condenser around with them. Anyone remember the old Chrysler slant six? Everyone who owned one learned to carry a spare ballast resistor in the glove box. With the advent of electronic ignition no one seems to worry about an ignition failure anymore, which is a testament to the reliability improvement gains that have been made. Ignition failure now spells death on the side of the road and the requirement for a tow truck. Carrying a spare of every electronic part in the system is not really feasible and I am not sure how you would easily build a bypass for the ignition system. I would be curious to see what ideas they might have about that system.
This is a really interesting project. When the time comes, make sure to take lots of pictures and keep us updated on what is being done.
This is a really interesting project. When the time comes, make sure to take lots of pictures and keep us updated on what is being done.
Thats an interesting approach, it would be more design than hacking. Most of the students are Canbus hacking experts so I have already moved them a paradign shift to analogue/mechanical hacking. If I try and get them to design they are going to instinctively use digital with redundancy and probably rip out the engine and replace with an eectric motor !
I did show them the video of the the 2CV car that a French engineer turned into a motorbike to get him out of the Sahara, I will try and build on that and see what they would come up with on the ST1100
As an aside, I did take my Matchless in for a session and had them look at the magneto and dynamo, the interest level was just hovering above zero !!! The ST1100 is about as old school as I can stretch them
They have asked me to get an old Ignition Control Module (ICM) so they can rip it apart , they have already built a bypass octopus with thin pin probes that they inserted into the wires and now want to know how they can remap the igniiton timing (which is why they want to rip the ICM apart !!)
They even came up with a design for a gear speedshifter for up-changes (involving a glue-on strain gauge on the gear lever link bar and a momentary interupter on the sidestand input to the ICM (and it was when the task of blipping the throttle for a down change came up that they thought about playing momentarily with ignition timing ). Of course they all said how much easier it would have been with fuel injection !
At some point we will get around to the spark plugs and coils but they are 'old school' so the interest level will need elevating
The bikes have only ever had Honda type 2 coolant (by dealer), is this the "old stuff" you mention ?
You should check on this AAA does not cover motorcycle anything-- don't ask me how I know---
I have been Gold member since 1985- You need an add on for RV I believe - then it will cover it.
no, 2 is the 150,000 stuff older a/f had to be changed 2 yrs or 24k and turned corrosive over extended use