Date:         Mon, 18 Dec 1995 09:10:26 -0500
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         "Frank E. Terhaar-Yonkers" <fty@mcnc.org>
Subject:      Re: pressure testing cooling system

For just a few $ you can get a gizmo that turns an old freon bottle into
an air storage tank.  Useful for road trips into the backwoods as
well as an easier way to get air to things if you have a compressor (or not).

Just hook the bottle up to the coolant overflow line, pressurize to bottle
level (preset when you fill bottle) close the valve to the bottle then
monitor pressure on the gauge attached to the gizmo.

- Frank

 >>The tester is screwed on in place of the pressure cap and then pumped up
 >>to pressurize the system, with the engine stopped.  Then you start
 >>looking for leaks and watching the pressure guage.  For very slow leaks, you
 >>can leave it pumped up all day until enough coolant has leaked to be
 >>visible. 
 >>
 >
 >This struck me as a really expensive but useful toy.  Why not take an old
 >inner tube and cut the valve stem out of it, leaving the brass pipe nice and
 >bare.  Disconnect the overflow tube at the overflow reservoir and insert the
 >valve stem and clamp it in.
 >
 >  A bicycle pump would inflate the system I think, allowing you to put it up
 >to its overpressure setting, 16psi, before it blows back. 
 >
 > If you wanted to monitor the pressure drop, then you would have to disable
 >the pressure relief spring somehow. Maybe get a junkyard cap and make it
 >into the pressure tester.  Buy one of those snazzy electronic tire gauges
 >and check pressure 'til bored, then go check tire pressure too.  Let's see
 >you do that with that $120 gizmo.
 >
 >Tim (Scrooge) Smith, bah...
 >

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Frank Terhaar-Yonkers	
High Performance Computing and Communications Research
MCNC
PO Box 12889	3021 Cornwallis Road
Research Triangle Park,  North Carolina  27709-2889
fty@mcnc.org   voice (919)248-1417   FAX (919)248-1455

http://www.mcnc.org/hpcc.html