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Someone wrote: > I just read an article on this question in the Gene Berg catalog. He > states that there is an decrease in engine life between 13 to 19% by > removing the cooling flaps. Knowing the type of "testing" Gene Berg typically used, I can just about guarantee that those numbers hold no significance. They were probably just pulled out of someone's.......... ***************************************************** ***************************************************** I know Berg is right for rings and cylinders. Cold causes friction numbers to rise and heat makes it float ; like a hot drill bit or hot brakes = less friction to stop or cut. I think you guys are getting too deep into this subject of engine wear caused by lack of cooling flaps. This is my five cents. When I was 12 years old I was a technical book worm nerd . My father kept, and till this day, all of his old popular mechanics and engine engineering manuals , (among a couple of hundred books on different subjects), one thing that did stay with me was the relationship between a cold engine temps, time and ring to cylinder wear. This did not mention bearing , valves, heads, metal alloys, expansion coeficients thirdimensional nutrino phase shifts etc..... It only mentioned ringsand cylinders. Our heads do not care very much if the rest of the engine expands without it , it floats on the cylinders, and studs no warping occurs when they are cold. Our crank floats on a cushion of oil on the bearings. Only during start up or cranking oil cushion is lacking this is a function of oil pressure and volume. Filtering makes these bearing parts last longer including head valve guides. Going back to the data, I read in a popular mechanics magazine and compared it to engine engineering book. The Magazine was from the mid 1950's and the engineering book from the late 1940's. The magazine article was many pages long and had data from various automobile manufacturers from research covering engine wear. The engine wear they investigated was on the cylinders and rings, they did not concentrate on the other components. Piston ring and cylinders are always in contact even when oil is present in the lubrication process. I noted several graphs with engine temps versus ring/cylinder wear . This was for water cooled engines but the concept still applies to us because we still have rings, pistons, cylinders and friction. Several engines from each of the factories involved were tested with controlled subject engines. At the end, the two test groups wear was to be measured . The warmer subjects had water kept warm before turn on to prove the point. The colder the test subject was, the more significant was ring and cylinder wear . The normal temp subjects had no measureable wear for the same time the colder subjects were running. At every given controlled amount of time, the heads and pistons of both subjects were removed and measured. put back together and started again. Some others were kept on to accumulate hours for the next tear down to give better variables to average out the data . The warm subjects coolant was kept warm. This is water cooled so they used water cooled temps for their graphs and concluded an equivalent amount of engine hours with similar changing operating loads to similuate car moving in traffic. They concluded how many thousands of miles the engines "ran" versus wear. This was caused by friction coefficient values are higher when cold just like drilling steel on a drill press or putting brakes on when cold. When brakes and the drill bit scenario get hot , the drill bit will not cut and the brake will not brake any longer ; they float on a cushion of heat energy. This study is what made the chart, I remember this since I was facinated how engine guts worked when I was a teenyboper. I started driving LEGALLY at 20 YEARS (A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO ;cough, cough, cough). I tested this theory by accident on two vehicles (non aircooled ), Using my destructive powers . Years ago on a car with a 7.5 liter detriot monster. I removed the thermostat added a larger 4 line radiator, this would be equivalent to no flaps and putting a larger fan (if that were possible) on our cars. I compression tested this car every month, this was my pride and joy and I wanted this to zooom forever . Spring through early winter compression was a very crisp (too high 11.5 :1) 180 lbs . I was proud of my engine's health until winter came . I used to drive night time and early morning only (graveyard shift) . outside temps was around 40 to 50 degrees sometimes a low 33. This is sunny San Diego , winters are not really cold. After a month of this, my compression was 150 and in mid Feb it was around 85 to 100 . I drove hard then and still. The engine had a hard time starting , even with the magnito and some other superwamydyne stuff. I asked my dad about my car's maladies, he then asked me if it was running too cool and I told him about my improved cooling mods (no thermostat and bigger radiator) he just laughed out loud and told me I needed a new engine and to foreget the old engine block. He said some of his army buddies did this mod in Japan and on the coldest part of the winter they wore the engines cylinder almost down to the water jacket. Reluctant to beleive that, I decided a rebuild and found that the cylinder ridge was so deep, it could be measured with a child's ruler it was three notches of the inch scale or four toe nails thick. My rebuild was only a little over a year old and now my block was junk. The next engine lasted 150000 miles until the car was stolen and driven off a bridge, (much crying ) . Years later I foregot my lesson . I bought a Volvo for 100 bucks, rebuilt the engine that was in the trunk put no thermostat in it . and additionaly had a very large efficient custom made radiator for the long trips I was planning in the future. I then moved to Tijuana at the bottom of a long loose dirt hill road . It was winter just after the rebuild with 40 degree temps in the early mornig. My engine died a month after that on that hill when water entered the cumbustion chamber through a crack on the cylinder wall . The crome moly rings almost wore through the rebored cylinder, needed a new block. This rebuild only lasted a month. The next rebuild had a thermostat and lasted 250,000 miles until the differential stripped gears and the autotranny converter popped open. Not bad for a 20 year old car that was for 8 people in my family. The moral of the story cold engine bad. Thermostat/ cooling flaps good. I did not forget these lessons when I first got my car over 2 years ago, first thing during the rebuild was to make sure coooling or warmup system was working. No more ochies for me ...... People driving in the snowy part of the country will have serious car booboos if driven alot without working flaps (engine rebores itself). My Squareback: After 50,000 miles, my engine has NO detectable cylinder ridges, crosshatch still shows al the way up and rings are nice , piston machining virtually unscratched. I will reuse my rings and put in a gapless second ring on each cylinder. If it were not for the stripped cam gear , the engine would still be zooming along. LEON MARTINEZ 1969 SQUAREBACK EFI/AUTO SAN DIEGO AND TIJUANA ------------------------------------------------------------------- Too much? Digest! mailto:type3-d-request@vwtype3.org Subj=subscribe