Tag Archives: SMART car

Transportation

Digital Blessings For Auto Restoration And Repair

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CarForumMemeOne of the biggest influences that the internet and social media has on the automotive industry is the now ease of finding hard-to-find parts and procedures. Go on Google, type in your year, make, and model, followed by the part  or procedure you are looking for, and in the results you are bound to find (at the very least) a forum, web group, or page dedicated to your vehicle specifically. What this means to you is that now you can discuss (with others who love the same vehicle as you) parts, repair procedures, styling, or just why you love your vehicle so much! What this also means is that you now can draw from a vast pool of knowledge from others who share your same interest.

So be it a complicated repair or common problem, you can usually chat with someone who has already been there and done that. (a majority of the time) and a lot of the forums usually have step by step procedures with pictures.  This came in handy for me last month when a certain silver Smart car I know had starting issues. The  first problem? Where is the starter? This may sound dumb but, Look under the bonnet (hood under the trunk) and you tell me where the starter is. I would bet 5 bucks that you could not, even from underneath. Unless, you have messed with one, prior. The next Issue, where the heck is this starter supposed to fit out? Lastly, How  do you even get to the bolts that hold it in?

 

Let's say you need a part for an old Edsel- just plug in the parameter in your fave search engine (give bing.com a try) and voila: related links CP

Luckily for me, there are many Smart car pages based out of the U.K. and one really good one I found, had many members who were very knowledgeable in this topic, this page also had step by step  detailed instructions along with very clear pictures. This is substantial considering that one cannot even get a repair manual for these cars, almost nobody has parts listings OR interchanges for any of these cars  with a model year prior to 2008 (this car being a 2006). Who knew that to change this starter there was insane procedure including dropping the engine and removing the intercooler system.  A bunch of people on this page had already been through this and had come up with a very efficient shortcut. This saved me hours of time.  All this from a free membership.   Here are a few Facebook pages that I follow:

corvettesyndicate

“Restoring Old Cars” – a lot of classic car posts,  “Lifted Trucks USA”- lots of pics of lifted trucks lol, “Chevy Chevelle”- Lots of Chevelle pics, ”Chevy Militia”- jacked up Chevy truck pics, and my two favorite ones “Bow-tie Society”- for everything Chevrolet, also where Ford and Dodge Trollers come to get put back in their respective places.  And “Black Crow Car Education System” –this guy posts all kinds of cool classic auto industry pics, vintage, and artistic mechanical pics. All of these pages are very cool. Check em out by searching them on Facebook. Till next time. For the Silo, Robb Price, WC Kustoms.

Transportation

Our Horse Powered Past And The Mother Of Current Auto Tech

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Where did auto tech start? A horse and buggy. Excellent horse-power huh? People got tired of the nurturing it took to take care of a work horse. People wanted more and as with anything the need for something better fuels the spark for innovation. How about something to do work, but doesn’t need rest? Doesn’t need medication? Doesn’t need someone to shovel up its crap? Take this formula and you get the steam engine, not a crazy engine, but an engine none-the-less. Suddenly the glowing aura of potential is perceivable, right on the horizon. Now we can have multiple horse-power without the care. Still needed someone to shovel though.

Enter, the mother of current automotive technology today, the oil industry. Instead of burning coal, why not find some ways to refine oil to be used as fuel sources to run things on? Who knows, we could have been running advanced versions of steam engines today? (They actually can be made to be fairly efficient and clean using current technology.) Silo Direct Link to the 1918 Stanley 735B Steam Car

Then the internal combustion engine enters the scene the oil companies love this, and a mass marketed engine that is completely dependent on oil is born. Just think, this is awesome for business, these engines need oil for fuel and lubrication. Then all the different designs start flowing. (Off the top of my head and in no chronological order) The single cylinder, then 2, then 4, then 6, then the flathead V8. Now this is where we start to see major horse-power and design improvements. The trusty ol’ inline 6’s, the small block eating slant 6’s,The overhead valve V engine, big blocks, small blocks, hemi’s. There are pancake engines, W engines, rotary engines, v-tecs, and many, many more. (Not to mention all of the different fuel delivery systems!)

The cylinder and valves and crankshaft of the Internal Combustion Engine

The one thing that really makes me scratch my head is the fact that we are just in the last few years getting hybrids, smart-cars, electric cars, and hydrogen cars that are actually worth looking at and driving. I mean, why is it that I can take a full size 2008 Chevrolet Silverado with a 5.3 L vortec engine, put: a cold air intake, a magnaflow exhaust system, and a good edge products programmer, and I can get an average of over 36miles per gallon, with the same horse-power? Why is it that I (not being an automotive engineer) can do this, but you can’t just buy one with those numbers from the manufacturer?
Not to mention brown-gas converters that have been tested on most common engine types that can take, mineral water, and a reaction from current between two electrified plates (similar to a car battery) and create a safe amount of hydrogen gas as a by-product which can make your car run the same on half the amount of fuel. The thing that boggles me is that most people have never even heard of these. You can buy the plans off the internet (not as complicated as it sounds) or I can even get ready to install ones from my performance part supplier. I just find it strange that automotive technology and fuel sources have taken this long to start to veer just slightly away from oil (or as ‘ol Jed calls it “Texas tea”).

At one point we bridged the gap from a horse and buggy to a steam engine, and then to internal combustion. With the technology we have now, we should have much higher mpg’s and horse-power or an extremely viable alternative. It really makes me wonder where we might be now if this technology was steered in a different direction from the start. It’s now been almost 100 years now of improving the same technology using more or less the same fuel source. There are guys in the states who run their own garage refined deep fryer grease to power their small pickups and VW buses. There are guys who run pickups off wood-fire smoke. Just something to think about.  For the Silo, Robb Price.