FORD VAN POINTERS.
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By R. T. Nicholson (Author of "The Book of the Ford").
N0-„, MIS is a true story, though I might opt have believed it if anybody had told it to me, and I am not certain if others will. • 139.—That Sediment Bulb.
It is about a.sediment bulb, and it happened in this wise : Ordinarily, we take the sediment bulb for granted, only troubling about it to the extent of flushing it out from time to time through thu lower peterek—the drain cook; and some of us do not even trouble to that extent.
Nevertheless, our Petrol (or benzoic) flows freely year in, year out, the bulb doing its duty right nobly, notwithstanding our carelessness or neglect, its duty being, of course, to catch any dirt or water that finds its way into and out of. the tank, and so to hold' it back that it will not enter the petrol pipu and stop it, or get into the Carburetter and clog that.
Symptoms and Suspicions.
The other day a driver (whose name 20 wild horsepower will not drag from me) was worried with symptoms of a starved carburetter, there being much popping back, spitting, and stuttering. Dirt or water in the carburetter was suspected, and the •carburetter was accordingly drained through its petcock, with no improvement whatever in the running. So the petrol pipe was unhibche.d from the carburettor, and the opening into the carburetter was probed with a wire, with the idea of clearing away any obstruction there might be at that point. Pipe replaced : nothing doing. Union nut again removed, and petrol main cock turned on, to see what kind of flow came from the end of the pipe. A mere dribble. Stoppage in pipe suspected.. Main tap closed, pipe removed, and blown through (a tasty job !): all clear. Before pipe was replaced at top end, tap was turned on. Hardly a dribble from top outlet from bulb, though the spirit flowed freely enough from bottom cock when. opened. The driver suspected that the top outlet was somehow choked, and passed a stiff wire into it. There was considerable resistance to the wire : so he shoved and wriggled it hard, and felt sure that he had shifted something (and we shall see later on that he had).
Short Bursts.
Everything was replaeed, and the engine started up again. It ran quite nicely for a few hundred feet, and then petered out Given .a few minutes' rest, it started up again ; and in stages of a few hundred feet at a time did that driver make his way to a garage, with the idea of getting that sediment bulb taken right off, and opened up, to see what stopped the outflow from the top cock, for he felt pretty certain by this time that that was where the trouble lay.
To Empty a Tank.
That, of course, meant emptying the tank first. (The only way to empty a tank quickly in such a case is to put some big vessel in position to catch the spirit as it gushes out, and then to screw out the sediment bulb, after removal of the petrol pipe, of course. You must have a vessel big enough to hold all the spirit remaining in your tank, because once you have the sediment bulb out you cannot stop the flow very well until all the spirit is out. You can, it is true, empty the tank with the sediment bulb still in position, by opening the bottom cock, and then you can use a number of petrol cans in succession to catch the spirit, because you can turn off the tap and stop the outflow whenever you like, but that is terribly slow work. In
the case that I am describing, the sediment bulb was screwed out of the-tank, and the spirit received in a big vessel placed underneath.)
Much of a Muckness.
When the sediment bulb was opened up, it was found to be full of the filthiest kind of muck, the bulk of which looked like brickdust mud, though in it there were such trifles, as rag shreds, hair, straw, chips, a bit of Bowden wire, a match, fragments of matches, and a large nail. The whole of the sludge would pretty nearly have half filled a teacup.
When the sediment bulb had been cleared out and replaced, the pipe put back into position, and the spirit poured in, the engine went off like a. giant re-. fresher!, and has given no trouble since. Now, I have not told this story merely because it is the account of a rather remarkable happening, but because it well illustrates the purpose, construction, use and abuse of the sediment bulb, the action of which is rarely clearly understood. Please understand. •
The Principle of the Thing.
When the top tap is turned on (the bottom tap' being closed) the spirit fills the bulb, and any dirt (including water) that there may be in it tends to fall. to the bottom of the bulb, most dirt being heavier than motor spirit, and water being, of course, decidedly so. Suppose, however, that there is floating dirt in the spirit, that gets towards the top of the bulb, and tries to flow into the petrol pipe (which is attached towards the top of the bulb). But it cannot get into the petrol pipe because there is a gauze strainer jast behind the end (or the beginning) of the pipe, which holds back the dirt or water inside the bulb. Ordinarily, the next time you drain the bulb, by opening the bottom petooek, you flush that dirt out. But in the case that I am describing some of the obstacles had evidently been too big to flush out in this way, and they had gradually accumulated, and collected other dirt, until there was a thick mortar of filth inside, clogging the strainer, and filling the bulb. That effectually stopped the outflow of spirit to the carburetter.
On the Hole.
There was a big hole in the middle of the gauze when the bulb was opened up. This was evidently the result of the probing with the stiff wire in the effort to clear away the obstructioo, and the obstruction that had been cleared away was the gauze itself !
Tracing the Trouble.
I put down the whole trouble to carelessness in filling the tank, and the use of dirty war spirit. The driver told me that liehad not been over-eareful in emptying his sediment bulb from time to time, that he had done it only when he "thought of it." That accounted for some of the trouble, though I am pretty sure that some of the odd bits that had got into the tank, and thence into the bulb, could never have been got out through the bottom +seek. Then be had used a filler funnel with a big gash in its strainer for some months on end, and the funnel used to lie about and collect filth when it was resting. This filth passed, of course, into the tank when the funnel was next used: and so the whole bulb got clogged up to such an extent that, in the end, the spirit would only just dribble out into the petrol pipe.
Morals.
Of course, the big moral to be drawn from this experience is that the spirit should pass through a fine strainer on its way to the tank, and that this strainer should be sound. The next moral is that the bulb. must be well flushed out from time to time by opening the lower cock. The: third moral is that it is bad practice to poke a stiff wire in through the hole from which the petrol pipe leaves the sediment bulb; if you do, you pierce the gauze and make it useless a,s strainer for the future ; it has to be replaced, though a fresh piece is easily soldered into position.
Replacing a Filter Gauze.
The old gauze is easily pulled away when the sediment bulb is off, and you will not of course tackle a soldering job of this kind when the bulb is in position in the tank, or you are likely to collect your fire insurance money—and possibly your life insurance money too—if you are alive to prove your own death !
The gauze is about the size of a five-shilling pieise, and a new piece can easily be cut to the size of the old piece with a pair of scissors; and the s,olderin is easy work, the gauze and the metal of the bulb being brass ; or, at all events, brassy—so that it takes 'the solder readily after a bit of cleaning up.
Opening Up the Bulb.
To open up the sediment bulb, so as to get at the "innards," you have to remove that circular plate, or cover, from the middle lefwhich the petrol pipe passes. This plate has a square boss on it: you get your spanner on to this, and, holding the body of the bulb very lightly in a vice—only tightly enough to give you the necessary purchase on the boos—you screw the plate right off : you can then see inside the bulb.
In replacing the bulb in the tank, use-red lead and boiled oil (or gold size) round the screw-thread, so as to get a tight joint; and pack the thread and the at of the plate with the same material ; without this precaution, you are apt to get weeping at the joints.
140.—Tightening the Water-hose Clips.
When you have tightened the screw adjustment on the clip of a water hose so far that you cannot take it up any further, and the water still persists in dribbling there; take the clip right off, and build up the
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hose where the clip will come by winding insulatingtape round and round it. This, of course, gives extra thickness at that point, so that the clip can now be passed on and tightened up to stop the leak.
This practice, by the way, was pretty general in dealing With aeroplane water hoses, not because they could not get the aeroplane engine clips tight, but because if one worked loose, the pressure of the insulating-Vpe would still keep the joint watertight. On this principle, the tape should be wound rather tightly round the rubber hose on your van ; and if so
wound, you will find that it is generally "good i enough ' without the help of the clip. Put the clip back, however, for it will at all events serve to keep the tape from unwinding, as it is apt to do unless the clip is there.
141.—New Style Water Hoses.
Current model Fords are fitted with longer hoses than formerly. This is due to the fact that the top radiator inlet pipe stands higher above the engine than formerly. (This, by the way, ensures better circulation and cooling than of old—when, truth to tell, the Ford engine boiled its water rather easily.) Do not expect old-style hoses to fit modern Fords, or vice versa.
142.—What Oil Scavenging Should Tell You.
The next time you scavenge out your engine oil by flooding it internally with paraffin (as directed in a Pointer which appeared some time ago) take the trouble to pass the dirty outflow through a filter of fine .gauze. You will learn a good deal from that. You will be astonished to find some pretty big solid lumps of dirt in it. H-ow it gets into the engine bothers me. There is yet more filth in sludge form in the outsconring. All of this is bad for the engine. It is only to be kept out of the engine by getting it out as often as your pocket—or your boss's pocket— will allow. True, you waste a lot of good oil every time you scavenge your engine, but you waste a lot of good engine every time you do not scavenge it, and when it needs it. You ought never to let more than a thousand miles pass without giving the engine a good clean out : careful drivers will do the job every 500 miles. Remember one thing specially.—Filth in the oil is apt to clog the oil-circulating pipe—and that spells red ruination. The oil must circulate, or the wear and tear become too terrible, and may easily result in a burnt-out big-end bearing.