Cooling system

Cooling Systems
What is a Cooling System?
A typical 4 cylinder vehicle cruising along the highway at around 50 miles per hour,  will produce 4000 controlled explosions per minute inside the engine as the spark plugs ignite the fuel in each cylinder to propel the vehicle down the road.  Obviously, these explosions produce an enormous amount of heat and, if not controlled, will destroy an enginein a matter of minutes.  Controlling these high temperatures is the job of the cooling system.
The modern cooling system has not changed much from the cooling systems in the model T back in the '20s.  Oh sure, it has become infinitely more reliable and efficient at doing it's job, but the basic cooling system still consists of liquid coolant being circulated through the engine, then out to theradiator to be cooled by the air stream coming through the front grill of the vehicle.
Today's cooling system must maintain the engine at a constant temperature whether the outside air temperature is 110 degrees Fahrenheit  or 10 below zero.  If the engine temperature is too low, fuel economy will suffer and emissions will rise.  If the temperature is allowed to get too hot for too long, the enginewill self destruct.

How Does a Cooling System Work?

Actually, there are two types of cooling systems found on motor vehicles:  Liquid cooled and Air cooled.  Air cooled engines are found on a few older cars, like the original Volkswagen Beetle, the Chevrolet Corvair and a few others.  Many modern motorcycles still use air cooling, but for the most part, automobiles and trucks use liquidcooled systems and that is what this article will concentrate on.
The cooling system is made up of the passages inside the engine block and heads, a  water pump to circulate the coolant, a thermostat to control the temperature of the coolant, a radiator to cool the coolant, a radiator cap to control the pressure in the system, and some plumbing consisting of interconnecting hoses to transfer thecoolant from the engine to radiator and also to the car's heater system where hot coolant is used to warm up the vehicle's interior on a cold day.
A cooling system works by sending a liquid coolant through passages in the engine block and heads.  As the coolant flows through these passages, it picks up heat from the engine.  The heated fluid then makes its way through a rubber hose to the radiatorin the front of the car.  As it flows through the thin tubes in the radiator, the hot liquid is cooled by the air stream entering the engine compartment from the grill in front of the car.  Once the fluid is cooled, it returns to the engine to absorb more heat.  The water pump has the job of keeping the fluid moving through this system of plumbing and hidden passages.

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A thermostat isplaced between the engine and the radiator to make sure that the coolant stays above a certain preset temperature.  If the coolant temperature falls below this temperature, the thermostat blocks the coolant flow to the radiator, forcing the fluid instead through a bypass directly back to the engine.  The coolant will continue to circulate like this until it reaches the design temperature, at whichpoint, the thermostat will open a valve and allow the coolant back through the radiator.
In order to prevent the coolant from boiling, the cooling system is designed to be pressurized.  Under pressure, the boiling point of the coolant is raised considerably.  However, too much pressure will cause hoses and other parts to burst, so a system is needed to relieve pressure if it exceeds a certainpoint.  The job of maintaining the pressure in the cooling system belongs to the radiator cap.  The cap is designed to release pressure if it reaches the specified upper limit that the system was designed to handle.  Prior to the '70s, the cap would release this extra pressure to the pavement.  Since then, a system was added to capture any released fluid and store it temporarily in a reserve tank. ...