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Vehicle maintance, a lot like cooking.


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You know the old saying, "truth is stranger than fiction."

A member of my family who is a professionally-trained mechanic was changing the oil in his car, and added just a bit too much during the refill.

He climbed back under the car with a wrench and an empty oil bottle, intending to open the drain plug just a bit, and let a little of the excess oil drip into the bottle.

As Murphy's Law would dictate, the drain plug came loose all the way, fell into the little quart bottle, and 4 quarts of nice new fresh oil proceeded to flood his driveway before he could get back out from under and grab a pan.

;-)

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A friend of mine, that know's nothing about cars, was checking his oil like you would a transmission. I think he put about a gallon and a half in it before it read full on the dipstick. There was a lot of smoke coming out the exhaust for about 2 month's after I drained and refilled it properly. and I had to do some explaining to him about auto maintenance, I told him never to lift a hood again.

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Many years ago I lived in a trendy-intown-urban-arty section of a large southeastern city. At the time, I owned a mechanical shop on the north-side of town, and living intown, commuting out-of-town allowed me to enjoy the best of both, but with no traffic delays either way. :)

One morning I came out of my apartment to find a very pretty neighbor attempting to check the oil in her Volvo, with the engine running. I said, very politely "excuse me, but I think I can help you there...". Before I finished the sentence she looked me up and down and broke in with "I certainly don't need any help from a MAN!!!". Okay honey. As I pulled away from the curb, I looked in my mirror to see oil spray all over the engine, and her, as she tried to pour it in and the fan blast caught it. ;)

I've also had folks bring me cars that they had filled with oil to the top of the filler hole. No lie. B)

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Many years ago I lived in a trendy-intown-urban-arty section of a large southeastern city. At the time, I owned a mechanical shop on the north-side of town, and living intown, commuting out-of-town allowed me to enjoy the best of both, but with no traffic delays either way. :)

One morning I came out of my apartment to find a very pretty neighbor attempting to check the oil in her Volvo, with the engine running. I said, very politely "excuse me, but I think I can help you there...". Before I finished the sentence she looked me up and down and broke in with "I certainly don't need any help from a MAN!!!". Okay honey. As I pulled away from the curb, I looked in my mirror to see oil spray all over the engine, and her, as she tried to pour it in and the fan blast caught it. ;)

That story sounds a little too perfect. True story?

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Many years ago I lived in a trendy-intown-urban-arty section of a large southeastern city. At the time, I owned a mechanical shop on the north-side of town, and living intown, commuting out-of-town allowed me to enjoy the best of both, but with no traffic delays either way. :)

One morning I came out of my apartment to find a very pretty neighbor attempting to check the oil in her Volvo, with the engine running. I said, very politely "excuse me, but I think I can help you there...". Before I finished the sentence she looked me up and down and broke in with "I certainly don't need any help from a MAN!!!". Okay honey. As I pulled away from the curb, I looked in my mirror to see oil spray all over the engine, and her, as she tried to pour it in and the fan blast caught it. ;)

I've also had folks bring me cars that they had filled with oil to the top of the filler hole. No lie. B)

I have a similar story Bill, but mine was a transmission, customer brought me their car saying that it was leaking transmission fluid, yes it was, they had over filled the transmission to the point that the pressure of shifts was forcing the fluid out of the dipstick tube.

Nick

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I have a similar story Bill, but mine was a transmission, customer brought me their car saying that it was leaking transmission fluid, yes it was, they had over filled the transmission to the point that the pressure of shifts was forcing the fluid out of the dipstick tube.

Nick

Good one, nick.

I once had a guy bring me a Chevy van he was convinced had blown head gaskets or a cracked block or head, because it was blowing billows of white smoke out the exhaust, and acceleration seemed to be very sluggish. He was also certain it needed major transmission work too, as it was using copious amounts of ATF. Turned out the diaphragm in the vacuum kick-down module had ruptured, allowing ATF to be sucked into the intake manifold, getting burned and making the smoke. A $14 part cured all the problems.

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I learned a long time ago that there are four colors of smoke that can come out of a (gas fueled) car engine (or tailpipe) and most of them are due to something abnormal going on.

If anyone is interested in this info, I'm fairly certain that a few members here can explain.

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Blue, white, black, and...? :huh:

actually I guess I lumped the two kinds of white together but one of them is not as white as the other.

automatic trans fluid comes out as white-ish but floats around like cigarette smoke (and smells horrible), water vapor from water getting into the combustion chamber comes out the tailpipe white but dissipates like mist or fog and you can usually see water dripping from the exhaust even after (or especially after) the engine has warmed up.

blueish smoke is almost always the result of oil being burned, and black is almost always too rich/fat fuel mixture.

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Many years ago at my old house, a recent divorcee moved back in with her parents across the street from me. She was snippy and had a problem with men at this point. I watched her pull a huge box from the hatch of her car that contained a brand new lawn mower. I asked if she needed help and got a snippy reply. I retreated back across the street thinking, "Okay you do it witch". I was quite impressed that she got it together in an hour or two. Then she started it up and began to mow the lawn. It was making a bit of a racket and I knew she didn't have any oil! My first thought was to sit and watch, but I jumped up and stopped her. She was decently appreciative at that point, and didn't ruin the motor. My wife asked why I helped and I replied that I was so impressed that she assembled the mower that I couldn't let her fail at that point! She was a bit nicer to me after that.

Edited by Tom Geiger
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I learned a long time ago that there are four colors of smoke that can come out of a (gas fueled) car engine (or tailpipe) and most of them are due to something abnormal going on.

If anyone is interested in this info, I'm fairly certain that a few members here can explain.

Smokin' deanhaydenclose.JPG

Edited by Greg Myers
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Not true to an extent. Some vehicle do not have weep holes in the mufflers thanks most likely in part to certain smog regulations, etc and the condensation will take some time to be removed from the muffler. Most mufflers have some sort of fiberglass baffling in them to quiet the exhaust note to acceptable limits. Really the only way to get it out fully is to actually drive it for a ways on a freeway or open highway for a bit. Its one of the causes of muffler rot out. People run their cars but not enough to expel the water from the muffler so it sits and rots it out. I drilled weep holes in my mufflers in my old Dodge Dart and this took car of the water in the tailpipe problem. (till I split the rare 340 block through the valley, across the deck and down the bores! Then it didn't matter what holes the mufflers had! lol)

all of this is true, that is why I added the comment regarding the symptom being evident after the engine had warmed up. any condensation in the exhaust system will have been burned out after five or ten minutes.

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