A semi tractor has a cooling system that is designed to dump all the heat that is created hauling 80,000Lbs up a steep hill on a summer day.
When it is near zero or below, the cooling system is over kill. It’s too good. It works so good in that weather that the engine never gets warm and as a result burns more fuel. So by blanking off most of the air inlet, it allows the engine to full warm up and run efficiently.
The answer to this is either maybe or no. If the engine is aluminum the gasket surface is aluminum, the threaded tube that sticks out from the block is always steel in my experience. If the engine block is cast iron, the gasket surface is iron, and the threaded tube is steel. Mr. Slant Lots of filter makers use cardboard inside the filter, but the mounting case is always steel in my experience.
As far as what makes the filter go keplow, I think it is not a case of the oil failing the cold weather performance. I think what is happening is that the oil pressure relief valve is sticking, and causing excessive oil pressure that blows the filter off. If you get oil that maybe has a little water in it (engine hasn’t been fully warmed up for a while) and some of that water soaked oil gets behind the relief valve and freezes, the valve can’t open. The oil pump builds oil pressure, and keeps building it as the valve is not opening to relieve the pressure. When the pressure gets high enough the weakest point of the system fails. In this case the oil filter.
Almost entirely off-topic, this is the same problem the Rebels had with the Snowspeeders on Hoth at the beginning of Empire Strikes Back, according to some picture book I saw at Barnes and Noble. The cooling systems had to be jury-rigged to not work so the engines on the speeder wouldn’t seize up in the cold.
There’s a thread around here where one of the Canucks is laughing about folks who tried to drive off before letting their car warm up properly and the transmission explodes. Don’t remember how cold it was. IIRC, in extreme cold climates synthetic oils are better than natural oils.
Because the electrolyte is sulfuric acid, and when the battery discharges it converts to water. The chemical reaction charging it converts the lead sulfate back to lead, and the water back to sulfuric acid. 38% w/w sulfuric acid freezes at -100 degrees F. 20% w/w sulfuric acid freezes at 10 degrees F.
I grew up in Fairbanks Alaska. Basically around -20F any car left outside and not plugged in won’t start.
The other thing that happens is that plastic parts on your car turn really brittle. I had a plastic interior door handle shatter on me, I had to open the car using a jagged plastic shard thereafter (I didn’t even think about getting the part replaced, that would have cost money).
Plenty of people would cover the radiators with cardboard. This is pretty much SOP when it gets below zero F. Yeah, and changing to winter oil, otherwise you won’t be able to crank your engine even if your battery is charged. I’ve also had tires freeze squarish, where you get bumps until they warm up.
And it goes without saying that you need to plug in your car if you leave it parked outside. Just about all parking spots in Fairbanks have electrical outlets so you can plug your battery heater in. This is pretty much an electric blanket that wraps around your battery. You can also get an engine block heater and a battery charger, lots of people would charge their batteries overnight when it got really cold.
Oh, and most people know this, but I’ll say it anyway. Your interior heater takes “waste” heat from the engine block and blows it into the passenger cabin. If your engine is cold you aren’t going to be able to heat the cabin. Turning the heat up to maximum isn’t going to do squat until the engine warms up.
However, once your car warms up then driving around at -60F is no problem, barring ice fog and suchlike. Unless your car breaks down. Then you’re going to freeze to death in short order unless you get picked up or you can walk to a heated building. If you’re properly dressed you can walk around at -60F for while, but the margin for error is pretty slim. Sixty below is FUCKING COLD. Not just damn cold, but insanely-you’re-gonna-die-now cold.
If you have a badly maintained car that is more used to UK temperatures, it appears that 18ºF will do it. It was -8ºC this morning when I left the house, which is kind of nippy for this area, and in 200 yards I saw two broken down cars with the bonnets up and steam billowing.
Ironically, one was… a Volvo.
(I was on my bike, and the only casualty of the cold was the battery in my cordless speedometer transmitter, which stopped working.)
I once attended a conference on cold weather injuries and cold water near-drowning. One presenter, a TV meteorologist in Cleveland, OH, gave a very detailed presentation on, among other things, Wind Chill Factor. I clearly recall him saying that Wind Chill Factor, as it is commonly used, has nothing to do with inanimate objects. It was designed to represent heat loss in living things; specifically, heat loss in humans. The following definitions support this:
*"wind-chill factor (wĭnd’chĭl’)
n.
The temperature of windless air that would have the same effect on exposed human skin as a given combination of wind speed and air temperature."
“wind chill, the cooling effect of wind and temperature combined, expressed in terms of the effect produced by a lower, windless temperature, also called wind chill factor, wind chill temperature, wind chill equivalent temperature, wind chill index, wind chill equivalent index, and wind chill temperature index. Wind chill is based on the rate of heat loss from exposed skin. Under windless conditions air provides an invisible blanket around the skin. As wind speed increases, this layer of heated air is carried away from the body at an accelerated rate, forcing the body either to work harder to generate more heat or cool down. If the actual air temperature is −5°F(−21°C) with a 20 mph (32 km/hr) wind, the wind chill temperature is −29°F(−34°C). Because wind chill is based the removal of heat from the human body, it does not reflect the increased rate of heat loss for inanimate objects such as automobile radiators under the same conditions but they also experience a faster heat loss with increasing winds.”*
I know that wind will cool an object to the ambient temperature faster than without wind. My point is, the strict definition of “wind chill factor” is not meant to describe that effect. It is meant to describe the heat loss of exposed skin. Will an engine sitting in a -5F environment with a 20 mph wind cool at the same rate as an engine in a -29F environment with no wind? I don’t know, but if not, the statement that ‘wind chill factor has nothing to with inanimate objects’ is a valid statement.
While on the topic of winter weather and driving, I too have a query… Exactly how much of a threat is the road salt to my vehicle’s underbody? Someone told me to get a carwash every other day to wash it all off or else my car will rust up in a hurry.
Having recently moved from Texas to here in Indiana this is my first winter dealing with real winter weather and salt on the roads but I do have my doubts that a recently built car ('02) would be so susceptible to such a common element (rust that is). Any input?
Getting your car washed that much would be craziness. Salt is fairly harmless unless it’s wet and warm. Are you parking outside or in a heated garage? If outside, your car will be less damaged than if you’re parking indoors. Either way, though, it’s not like a hole will rust right through your car in ten minutes if you don’t get it washed. I’d say once a month is more than enough.
However if you’re living in a place that has harsh winters regularly and where salt is always used, you might give a thought to getting your car undercoated every couple of years. It doesn’t cost that much and it saves on wear quite a bit.
I can personally vouch for that. I had a car that used a quart of oil per week or 200 miles, whichever came first. One crisp winter morning, I found out that 5W30 jells after the bottles spend the night in the trunk at -35F. I was not jellin’ like a felon or Magellen.
There was a thread on undercoating a year or 2 ago. I don’t have time to look for it.
What I recall: Modern cars come from the factory not needing it. Carelessly done, it can plug drain holes, making the situation worse. More than one person reccommended spraying used motor oil on the undersides of vehicles.
When I read your first post, I felt the need to comment. As I read through the thread, I saw most of what I wanted to say already covered by others. The posts by TimeWinder and CookingWithGas made a few things come more in to focus for me. I was kind of glad of that, since I didn’t want to be typing out of my ass so to speak. Using the dictionary definition of “wind chill”, what you wrote seems to be true. That said, it would be a disservice for readers to think that there is a complete disconnect between cooling and air movement over a car. Your first point certainly didn’t say that, but could have been taken that way. That heat exchange is why we have radiators and fans as part of the cooling system. It’s also why, as others pointed out, covering the radiator is useful or even necessary in extreme cold.
I do wonder about another phenomenon, that of cars “freezing up”. How does this occur after cars have been started and are then in motion? It doesn’t seem to make sense (considering moving air doesn’t change the temperature), but I have heard plenty of people talk about it. Is it all anecdotes and misidentification?
Post #12.
If it is very cold and the oil in the transmission (manual) and or rear end is too thick, the parts won’t move. Also extreme cold has an effect on the fit of machined parts, especially if they are made of different metals.
In the case of an auto trans, if the fluid gets too thick, it may not pump correctly.
Noted; I see your point. I assumed that increased heat loss due to air flow would be obvious to anyone who owned a car, a fan, and to most everyone else.
Thus, I amend my first post to the following: “While inanimate objects will cool faster with wind than without, that is not an example of wind-chill factor. That is an example of forced convection. Wind chill factor is a very specific term and formula, designed and used to describe heat loss of exposed human skin.”
