No thermostat?

[patrick_g]

Tom, Of course some environmental regulations are a very good thing as are some environmentalists but the extremists and some of the whacko things that happoen are a source of amusement, consternation, and indignant backlash.

When I was at SUBASE San Diego the base civil engineer was not permitted to cut down the Eucalyptus trees (not native to California but a failed experiment in growing wood for railroad ties but they wouldn't hold the spikes.) They weren't allowed to cut the trees because the night herons were roosting in them (and messing up all the nearby parked cars.) The Herons favored the trees solely because they were in direct line of sight of the bait barge where they liked to go steal bait fish. Not exactly a case of trying to preserve the original natural order of things.

The civil engineer started having the trees radically pruned a few weeks ahead of the birds nesting season. The birds just moved "next door" and carried on business as usual. Removing the non-native trees would have been a move toward restoring the natural balance.

Meanwhile the park rangers at the Cabrillo National Monument were seeking out diseased ice plant to spread the disease to kill out the ice plant growing on their property. They were afraid that there would be a backlash from the ENVIRONMENTALISTS if they dug it up or sprayed it to kill it so they spread a plant disease on the sly to try to get it to die from natural causes so they could eliminate this imported exotic that competed with native species.

Pat

 

[woodchuckie]

Here in my South we once introduced the non-native beaver to stop any erosion missed by the non-native kudzoo which was introduced because the edge of our cultivated fields consisted of sand, sand and more sand. We now have kudzoo except where it's too wet because of the federaly protected wetlands caused by the beaver. Now what was that dangerous insect I heard about that eats fireants.

 

[Renze]

Monte & Catman are both correct. Alot of uneducated people will remove a thermostat trying to fix a overheating problem and just cause themselves more grief. To clarify why an engine would actually overheat with a thermostat removed - at higher operating RPMs the water pump is circulating the coolant too fast for proper heat transfer, first the heat from the engine to the coolant, then the heat from the coolant to the radiator cores, it's not staying there long enough for the heat transfer to occur. Now if you have a radiator that's half clogged it might cut the flow enough to fool you into believing you've "fixed" the problem by removing the thermostat, but all you've done is mask the real rpoblem and it's going to bite you in the...

I've never heard of overheating because the thermostat was removed... and i doubt if removing the thermostat makes that much difference in flow restriction, as the coolant liquid finds its way through narrow holes and galleys in the cylinder heads and around the walls.

My brother once bought a Nissan Patrol 2.8 turbo diesel jeep. The engine didnt came to operating temperature on chilly days so we assumed the thermostat was stuck in open position.
When the guy he bought it from, sent a thermostat by mail, we opened the thermostat housing and found.... just an empty housing. when we put in the thermostat, it overheated every small trip.

The cause of this, is loss of compression by leaks, mostly through the valves, or by the piston rings.


About flow, i had a cooling problem on the Zetor 5245. It overheated quickly even though the previous owner replaced the original fan for a BMW automobile fan, to get some extra wind draft.
After asking around, i found that some models came with a fine mazed radiator: it had the double amount of pipes, with half the diameter.
Both water flow THROUGH the pipes, and air flow AROUND the pipes were too much restricted. I replaced it with a coarse mazed radiator of a wrecker, a 5718 of early 70's. I also polished the valves and valve seats, which were pitted because of earlier overheating.

I also turned open the fuel pump a turn or 2, and with the extra power i have a much smoother tractor that hasnt gone over 105ｰC again in the hottest summer days.



About the need of a thermostat, as mentioned by others, the engine has to get to a reasonable exhaust gas temperature to prevent carbon build up, and to vaporise condensates of fuel and water in the oil.

 

[Soundguy]

According to the show i saw.. there were no heat exchangers.. and the reactors that they were using to cook up plutonium was putting out pretty heavilly contaminated water. The show showed areas downstream of the reactors.. and everything looke dlike a superfund clean up site.. YUCK!

Soundguy

Tom, San Onofre nuclear power station just north of San Diego uses open loop cooling with sea water. Aqua culture experiments like growing species who need warmer water and such were pretty successful (if you ignore the baby fish with 3-4 eyes and an extra tail.) Just kidding about the genetic mutations.

The cooling water, whether from the ocean or a river does not go through the reactor to cool it! A recirculating transfer medium is used to carry the heat from the reactor to heat exchangers where it is transfered to the cooling water. The water doesn't "see" a lot of radiation. The faster they flow the water through the heat exchangers the better they work (within reason, yoiu don't want hypersonic turbulence) and the lower the temperature of the effluent stream.

Pat

 

[Egon]

What show was That?

 

[Soundguy]

Was on the discovery channel.. they did a program on the uranium to plutonium reactor processing for the first nukes we built .. then on to cover the city that grey up arounf the area to support it.. etc..

Soundguy

 

[skipmarcy]

What show was That?

I saw the same show a few days ago, it was either on the History channel or Discovery channel. Can't remember the name of it but it was all about the nuclear experimentation & buildup in th USA. This reactor site was in Washington state. Usually these channels will repeat programs like this, might be able to catch it sometime again soon.

 

[larso1]

I saw the show too, Discovery or History channel. They gave a general description of pumping the river water directly through the long irradiating tube/core sets, and mentioned an incredibly short time (a couple seconds) it took for the water to pass completely through it, front to back. This was to maintain the water temperature within a couple degrees from entry to exit, which was critical. They did mention that there was a radioactive waste issue but that this was war time and would be dealt with "later." There was no mention of filtering or any kind of water treatment but those kind of shows never do get into that kind of detail.

Bill

 

[Soundguy]

Yep.. that's the progrm i saw. And then they took that boat ride and showed the closed down reactors.. and then talked about the contaminants trapped in t he radioactive sludge at the bottom o f the channel.. etc..

Was a neat show.

Followed by the nuke silo's that had missle protection.. etc..

Soundguy

 

[patrick_g]

Now what was that dangerous insect I heard about that eats fireants.

Here in Oklahoma, among other species, we have large red ants. These red ants can bite like the devil if you are foolish enough to stand or sit on one of their mounds but are nothing compared to fire ants (small dark colored ants.) Our red ants and fire ants do not collocate. The native red ants will fiercely defend their territory by killing out the fire ants.

I used to give the red ants grief of various sorts including driving over or kicking their hills and such. After reading about the red ants killing and preventing fire ants from taking an area the red ants became my new best friends.

I don't know what else is a natural enemy of the fire ant but at least we have native species who are a deterrent to the invading fire ants. Too bad we don't have more of the red ants.

I guess we are lucky to have the red ants. Luckily the Government hasn't introduced scorpions or such to thwart the fire ants (so far.)

Pat