cooling your car down

Cooling Your Car Down
By Benjamin Hudson

As summer season heats up the human body, it does the same to vehicles up to the point where it could lead the vehicle to break down.

Internal combustion engines create friction. Even with the best motor oils, the engine still produces a vast amount of friction. Friction creates heat. Too much of this could destroy the vehicle. The job of the engine s cooling system is to remove the heat as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The basic components of your car s cooling system include a radiator, fan, VW fan blades in the case of your VW car - water pump, thermostat, a sensor or two, an overflow tank, water, coolant, and a series of belts, clamps and hoses to connect it all together and make it run. The system works by directing fluid to pass the hottest parts of your engine. Then redirecting that fluid out to the radiator, where the heat collected from the cylinder heads gets dissipated into the cooler atmosphere. Then the whole process begins again.

Water and coolant are the comprising fluids within your car s cooling system. The coolant consists of a green fluid that contains ethylene glycol. This chemical extends the freezing and boiling point of water, making it ideal for use in automotive radiators. It also prevents rust.

One important thing to remember is that never open your cooling system to add fluid when the system is still warm. Not only are the contents really hot, they are also under severing pressure. It is best to let it cool overnight.

The radiator, which is generally made of aluminum, is located just behind the front grille of the car. It consists of a series of tubes, known as the radiator core, which contain the coolant-water combination. Attached to these tubes are thousands of little metal fins. These are also made up of aluminums. These fins effectively increase the surface area of the radiator, exposing the heated fluid within to the cooler surrounding air.

A fan is bolted to the interior of the radiator. Park your car in a driveway on a hot day, leave the engine idling, and watch the water temperature gauge rise. When it gets to about halfway, the fan will kick in. That job is done by the heat sensor. The fan increases the volume of moving air. Then, the gauge drops.

The water pump drives the coolant through the system. Pumps vary, but are generally a centrifugal type, with a rotating impeller. They are driven by a pulley off the engine.

The cooling system also includes a thermostat. It detects temperature and controls fluid flow within the system. It is a plastic overflow tank, which serves as a reservoir for excess coolant and the hoses, clamps and belts.

The system can spring a leak. If you notice that your vehicle is running warmer than usual, Edmunds.com suggests park it, turn off the engine, and look underneath. A leaky cooling system on the boil will make a distinctive whistling sound, like a teakettle getting ready to scream.

If there is a leak, you should be able to spot or hear or smell it.

Any one who has knowledge in automobiles knows that heat is the enemy of the engine. If your instrument panel indicates your car is running way too hot, or if you see or hear or smell something indicating excessive heat, it generally means there is something seriously wrong with your engine, or the cooling system is not functioning well. Either way, you have to solve such problem.

For more about your VW parts needs like VW fan blades, visit your trusted online source.

Benjamin Hudson works as a supervisor at one of the top engineering firms in the business district of Louisiana. He is also a freelance journalist and has passion for anything automotive.

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