Tess-
Most cars from the 30's were water cooled with a few, mostly European,
being air cooled.
The overwhelming majority of water cooled cars used thermostats coupled
with a water pump whereas a few relied on "thermo siphon" which
incorporated large diameter hoses without benefit of a pump. The water
would heat up in the engine and then rise up through the upper radiator
hoe to the top tank of the radiator where it would cool of and sink to
the lower tank to began the process all over.
The primary way of burning yourself would be to take the radiator cap
off of an overheated cooling system and rapidly pour in cold water. The
cold water hit the hot block and make like a geyser as the hot water and
steam came shooting out of the open radiator top tank. You hopefully
didn't get scalded and soon learned that you had best pour the water in
very slowly while at the same time keeping as much of your body as
possible out of the line of fire of possible eruptions.
I have a degree of personal experience having resurrected my
grandfather's thermo siphon cooled 1922 Maxwell touring car and driving
it when I was in high school in the late'50's.
Regards,
Ed Solstad
Minneapolis, MN
On 3/27/2014 8:42 PM, alfa-digest wrote:
alfa-digest Friday, March 28 2014 Volume 10 : Number 2726
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 17:34:18 -0700
From: [email protected]
Subject: [alfa] ancient history
Hi guys,
Long time no hear! You guys know me from my wacko questions in the past,
and I have another one. It is an ancient history question -- maybe Alfa
related, maybe just generally automotive related. You guys always have
such a fount of knowledge I thought certainly you'd have an answer.
I have been translating some old letters from Swedish to English. In one
of the letters, from the 1930s, the writer starts talking about cars. What
I want to know is how water was used in engines from the 30s -- were they
water cooled, air-cooled, etc.? Did they have thermostats? Was there
anything special about cold weather?
The writer is describing how to avoid a certain kind of accident where you
burn yourself from boiling water -- he doesn't say whether in the engine
or in the radiator. But apparently whatever procedure they are doing, it
is a procedure one might encounter routinely. Did people routinely add
water to the radiator in those days?
I've been trying to think of a situation where I would regularly come in
contact with hot water in my 'modern' (1980s) cars. The thermostat deals
with that.
Thanks for any ideas!
Tess
in Bellevue, WA USA
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End of alfa-digest V10 #2726
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