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Troubleshooting-and Fixing-a Car that Won't Start
Popular Mechanics — Your car cranks for a second or two, springs to life, and then quickly settles down into a fast idle while it warms up. At least that's how it's supposed to work. This morning, no dice. It's dead, and there's no obvious reason why. ...More…
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Debunking 5 Cold-Weather Car Myths
Popular Mechanics — Well, that depends on what you drive. Back in the days when the average car was a front-heavy, rear-drive sedan with marginal bias-ply tires, sure, a hundred pounds of ballast might have made the difference to help you crest that snowy hill. Most ...More…
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Is Nitrogen Better than Air in Car Tires?
Popular Mechanics — Sort of. From the top: Air is 78 percent nitrogen, just under 21 percent oxygen, and the rest is water vapor, CO2 and small concentrations of noble gases such as neon and argon. We can ignore the other gases. There are several compelling reasons ...More…
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How to Rebuild a Brake Caliper: Saturday Mechanic
Popular Mechanics — Most hydraulic brake calipers have only one or two moving parts. Here's how to make them move again after they freeze up. All of which is fine, until the engine seems a little ... reluctant to maintain speed. As you turn a corner, you catch that ...More…
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How Turbos Work
Popular Mechanics — Turbos were billed as a way to have the fuel economy of a four-cylinder engine with the power of a Six. Sound familiar? That's what automakers are claiming today. Theoretically it makes sense because the turbo uses some of the normally wasted ...More…
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I get mail.
Popular Mechanics — Hundreds of pieces of mail every month, and that includes e-mail, paper mail, the occasional voice mail and even a smattering of faxes. For the last two years, an unhealthy proportion of that correspondence has been about the same thing-making ...More…
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How to Change a Serpentine Belt: DIY Auto
Popular Mechanics — This belt, obviously past its prime, ran for 115,000 miles, and it was still within the tension limits specified. It's toast, regardless. Most modern cars don't use old-fashioned V-belts anymore. In the '70s, as more and more cars were ...More…
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Compressed Natural Gas
Popular Mechanics — We create a lot of ethanol in this country, and most of it goes into our cars. Seventy percent of the gasoline sold in the U.S. has 10 percent ethanol-E10. This practice began when the petroleum companies needed to replace the oxygen-bearing MTBE ...More…
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Transmissions
Popular Mechanics — Expect to see smaller engines, with plenty of efficiency-boosting features. Variable valve timing and lift will become much more common, turbos will be used to offset power losses from smaller engines, and gradually more engine accessories like ...More…
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Back to Basics
Popular Mechanics — Use a digital multimeter set to the millivolt range to search for voltage drops. Electricity shouldn't be daunting, especially when it comes to automotive wiring. It's simple direct current (DC), and it doesn't pack enough punch to make your ...More…
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How to Fix a Cracked Windshield Washer-Fluid Reservoir
Popular Mechanics — First suggestion: Drain and refill the windshield reservoir with fresh washer fluid-not water-in the fall, when you winterize the rest of the RV. Washer fluid has a high alcohol content and won't freeze. But you already had that figured out, ...More…
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I have been experimenting
Popular Mechanics — Until two years ago, all diesel engines were B100-compatible (biodiesel cannot run in gasoline engines because it needs an engine that ignites by compression). Then standards set by both the Environment Protection Agency and California Air ...More…