Date:         Fri, 21 Jul 1995 13:02:21 -0400 (EDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         sstones <sstones@io.org>
Subject:      RE: Sqirting water on an oil cooler et al

On Tue, 18 Jul 1995, Cetin Seren wrote:

> 
> I have trouble understanding the logic in this also...  The only way
> 

Okay Volks,

The way I see it is... The thermostat is operated by the temperature
of the coolant leaving the engine, so a really cold rad isn't
going to have any effect on the thermostat openning.

The thing about spraying water onto onto the rad is...
It gets in between the fins and prevents airflow.
When I was in school, my teacher (a damn good mechanic) explained
it all to me and even showed us the formulas of the heat transfer,
and conductivity of aluminum (rad fins) at 115 deg Celsius trying
to boil water, and then with 20 deg Celsius air blowing through
at some reasonable speed. (I don't remember what speed, but it 
made sense (Nor do I fully understand the physics and formulas
he used, but he's brilliant and I trust him))
The flowing air did prove to remove the heat better than the slowly
heating to a boil H2O.

So, In summary, it has to do with the water clogging up the fins.



Cheers

<sstones@io.org>
SStones             Toronto,  Ontario.