I highly recommend "Engineering Explained" channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/EngineeringExplained
I second this. I've sunk quite a bit of time on that channel. Excellent explanations.
How a car works (2012)
11–20 of 120 posts
Re: How a car works (2012)
#12Re: How a car works (2012)
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that there's a lot of dated cars, I don't think the advice is unwarranted.
GM stopped putting carburetors in vehicles in 1985 for the US market, which is 30 years ago. When can we let go of old tech?
There is other countries which are using cars other than the United States (shocking I know !) and I have a car which has one.
Re: How a car works (2012)
#14Seems to be very dated. Plenty on adjusting carburetors, in fact adjusting all sorts of no-longer-needing-adjusting parts.
It will be even more dated when electric vehicles take over and internal combustion engines become as niche as steam engines. But then they still make manuals for those: http://www.haynes.co.uk/thomas/
Re: How a car works (2012)
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that there's a lot of dated cars, I don't think the advice is unwarranted.
GM stopped putting carburetors in vehicles in 1985 for the US market, which is 30 years ago. When can we let go of old tech?
Even if all carburetors disappear from the face of the earth, it's still good to know they once existed, what purpose they served, and when and how they started being replaced.
Extreme example: I once read a fascinating article about middle aged technology, where they commented on, among many things, how a high-quality cart wheel would have a hard, dense wood on the axis, another kind of wood in the spokes that was flexible, and a border made of a very stiff wood. I'm searching for it but I don't seem to be able to find it, alas.
Re: How a car works (2012)
#16De Lorean Owner’s Handbook: http://www.howacarworks.com/manuals/doc/d3218-owner-s-manual
Nice. It must have taken guts to build a car in Belfast during the height of the troubles. Not that it worked out that well in the end, but it is an iconic car.
Re: How a car works (2012)
#17Seems to be very dated. Plenty on adjusting carburetors, in fact adjusting all sorts of no-longer-needing-adjusting parts.
I used to love carburetors. Now there was technology you could understand: little needles and valves and levers and jets and gaskets, and if anything went wrong, you could just get a rebuild kit, tear the carb down down, clean it out, and put it back together with the new parts.
In fact, rebuilding the carburetor on a friend's VW Beetle gave me the confidence I needed to take the next logical step: rebuilding her whole engine!
I didn't have all the right tools, so we took the VW down to the Briarpatch Cooperative Auto Shop on Park Blvd. in Palo Alto. [1] [2]
This was like a TechShop for cars: You could get a membership and take your car there to work on it using their tools or your own. Or you could have one of their mechanics help you with the work.
I got the engine torn down, all the parts laid out on the floor, and started to think about how to clean it up and put it back together.
Then I realized I was in way over my head and called the resident mechanic over to see if he could finish it for me.
He did, but only after shaking his head sadly and saying, "This is the worst way to get a job."
[1] https://ukiahcommunityblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/dave-smi...
Re: How a car works (2012)
#18Seems to be very dated. Plenty on adjusting carburetors, in fact adjusting all sorts of no-longer-needing-adjusting parts.
Modern cars are very locked-in with computer systems. So fixing many aspects of modern cars is no longer possible for most car owners like it used to be.
This seems like a neat site for people with older cars. Although, if you are owning a vintage car, then surely one should know a bit about maintaining that car without having to resort to such a site, but personally, it's nice to know it is there.
I mean, its articles on break systems, suspension and steering are useless to me, because I own old Citroëns, but it's nice to know there is a site to go to if I am curious, because I definitely intend to own more older cars (they tend to be more interesting than modern cars).
Re: How a car works (2012)
#19This is my site!
This was a pleasant surprise to find my own site on HN this morning! I wondered why it was getting a few more FB likes than usual today.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
I finished this redesign last week so any feedback is welcome.
The main task was to recreate labels and annotations on the illustrations in SVG format, and to reformat the articles in a way that flows nicely and is responsive, but without needing complex markup in the articles. I'll write about the process if there's interest.
I've previously written a little about this project:
http://www.howacarworks.com/about/making
http://www.howacarworks.com/a-year-on
Current traffic is 200k uniques a month and it's taken about two years of steady growth to reach that point.
Re: How a car works (2012)
#20Seems to be very dated. Plenty on adjusting carburetors, in fact adjusting all sorts of no-longer-needing-adjusting parts.
Yeah, it's getting dated now and I'm planning on creating some new content shortly. That said, it's still highly relevant for most classic car owners, and large amounts of the developing world.