Automotive

Hydroxy Gas via Electrolysis Pt.1

This may not be new to some of you blog surfers out there, but it is to me, so I decided to give it a shot. Now I’ve done quite a bit of video and web page perusing to figure out the basics on this one. Two electrodes in electrolyte doped water, add some current and you get a gas that goes boom when ignited. “Why is this so important?” you ask. Simple….because you can use it as a fuel for engines. That’s where I will take this. Tonight was just a “proof of concept” test run. Some left over bits of wire and copper tubing, a little lye in some tap water, with the power supply used for my ham station and viola. The container is a resealable plastic decanter from the local mega mart. Rumors abound on the internet about using Hydroxy gas (also called Brown’s Gas or HHO) made on demand in this manner as a fuel booster. Not only does it help replace some of the gasoline or diesel that your engine burns, but it assists in the burning of what your engine does use. This should have the overall effect of boosting your mileage. We shall see just how well it works. Now, one of the things that everyone talks about is having to fool your O2 sensor if you try to feed your car a significant percentage of this stuff since it makes the emissions cleaner. There’s bound to be something to it as this gas is used in industry for cutting and welding as well, so we know it burns and better yet, the byproduct is water. So follow along with me and we will see what it takes to make hydroxy for your vehicle.

Top view of my Test rig

Full side view of test rig running

The electrodes I used are copper tubing, but that won’t work for a production system, they were just to test. Within seconds of use the positive terminal developed a layer of corrosion and began to flake off. I’m going to use stainless steel for the final production. Suggestions are welcome if you’ve used this before.

Duracell DPP-600HD Powerpack 600 Jump Starter & Emergency Power Source with Radio

Fuel from Water: Energy Independence with Hydrogen, 11th Edition

Alternative Energy Demystified

Tags: Automotive by Technical Mercenary
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Flow Through Parts Brush

So what good is the previous parts washer without a brush to apply the cleaner with. Well I guess I could go buy one. But they are pretty simple, not easily found locally for myself, and probably pretty cheaply built given their simplicity. Sounds like this scenario is ripe for a DIY product. Let’s begin….

Brush and Tube Fitting before

So go to a tool store and pickup a cheap parts cleaning brush, as plain as you can find one. I picked up a pack of two for around $3 US. You’ll need a drill, epoxy, and something to feed the fluid with. In this case I chose a small piece of tubing with a coupler to allow the brush to be disconnected from the cleaner. This becomes pretty self explanatory with the pictures. Just drill a hole from some where on the brush so that you drill through the bristle attachment point. You will loose the bristle’s at that point, but if you drill it out, where exactly are they suppose to be attached? Shove the tube in the hole then epoxy liberally. If you notice in the picture, not only is the hole epoxied, but the metal band is as well to prevent the fluid from leaking out from the top, which it did on a dry run without the epoxy.

Brush with fitting ready for epoxy

Brush with fresh epoxy

As the epoxy cured I used a rubber band to hold the hose close to the brush for a more inline connection. Once cured, attach to the hose on the parts washer. I also loosely zip tied the hose to the end of the brush through the hole in the handle. This should help maintain control of the hose as I move the brush around. If I could do this differently, I would have tried to use a longer drill bit and just drilled out the center of the brush on a drill press, then made the hose connection on the end of the handle. This would have made a more professional looking product. However I don’t have a bit to do that, nor do I currently own a drill press.

Lisle 14000 Parts Cleaning Brush with Polypropylene Bristles

J-B Weld 8277 J-B Water Weld. 2 oz.

Northern Industrial Flow-Thru Brush and Hose for Parts Washers

Tags: Automotive, Tools by Technical Mercenary
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Homemade Parts Washer

So after looking at parts washers in the stores and online I decided that I could build one with better features for the same price as the cheap ones. Most cheap ones are good only for water based (aqueous) solvents, and my design is no different since it uses a water pump for it’s design, though you could upgrade it. The pump used is a water fountain pump submerged in an old bucket from pool chemicals. There is a secondary bucket suspended beneath the tub drain and main bucket lid, that has shop rags in the bottom, with the bottom turned into swiss cheese. This provides basic filtering to prolong pump life.

Pump and filter assembly

The red in water above is from the red shop rags used for filters. Inside the smaller bucket is a down pipe of the tub drain. The smaller bucket is just suspended with some electrical wire via holes drilled in the appropriate places.

The tub itself is a feed trough from a farm supply store that is held off the bucket with four toilet tank bolt assemblies (they come with rubber washers) and a bar sink drain assembly that has a large hole strainer/stopper built in. The bottom of the drain assembly has the downpipe that goes through the main bucket lid and into the filter bucket. On top of the rubber washers that all the pieces came with, I also gave all the holes and seals a healthy dose of automotive grade RTV silicone.

Visible Drain and Bolt Assemblies

The feed tube from the pump comes up to pipe fittings that split in two different routes. The purpose of this is to create a sort of parts “dishwasher”. One of the pipes off the tee is to go to a flow through brush that will be built later (next article), but for now it is just an open tube. The other path taken by the fluid goes to a tube ring suspended at the top of the tub. This ring has nozzles provided by tube couplers that came from an assortment pack of vacuum tube fittings. These fittings are pushed into the side of the tube at desired intervals. Pilot holes help this process. When your done, mix in whatever you want for an aqueous de-greaser or parts solvent. Take a look at the final pictures and tell me what you think.

Finished tub view with fittings

Another tub view

Graymills M5005-141 Parts Washer Cleaning Solvent

Little Giant 1-YS 1/150 HP, 205 GPH @ 1′ Parts Washer Pump - 6′ Cord no plug (501020)

9″ Parts Washer Brush

Tags: Automotive, Tools by Technical Mercenary
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Satellite Radio Repair

So I decided to fix my Sirius satellite receiver today since it was acting flaky with its onboard controls and wouldn’t save any of my presets. Two buttons did not feel right and I thought maybe something had been spilled into it. So I started by spraying electronics cleaner into the case through vent holes. Which came out clean, but wasn’t getting into where I wanted it to. This particular radio is an XACT Visor model I picked up in the store one Christmas. It was used in my work truck at a previous job and now my wife is hooked on it. We get really bad radio stations where we live, so we don’t mind the subscription cost at all. So after the cleaning spray I took it apart with a T7 (I believe, maybe T6) torx driver on the bottom. These are handy sizes to have in your tool kit for working on portable electronics. Almost all the rest of it snaps together, save a few standard screws, and may require a little flexing of plastic to get to the screws that hold the front panel PCB on.

Once I had it apart I discovered that the menu and category surface mount buttons didn’t work. So being the stubborn person I am, I dismantled the buttons while they were on the board. Their internals use a spring disk not only for the contact, but to make the button rebound from depress. The disks on one side of the radio had failed to rebound, and were unrecoverable. So I surmised that it was making contact at the wrong times, thereby causing conflicts with me controlling the radio. So I just removed the button internals to prevent unwanted contacts from happening and put everything back together. Why you may ask? Easy, we have a remote for the radio, so we didn’t loose any real functionality, we in fact gained some back.

Button Internals

The wife is talking about a new one for herself, so I will fix it properly later. Will probably require me to order some buttons from an electronics supply house.

SIRIUS Sportster 5 Satellite Radio Receiver with Vehicle Kit

SIRIUS Stiletto 2 Portable Satellite Radio with MP3 Player

30 pc MICRO PRECISION SCREWDRIVER SET w/ T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 T8 FLAT PHILLIPS POZI HEX Hobby and more - LIFETIME GUARANTEE!

Tags: Automotive, Consumer Electronics by Technical Mercenary
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Diesel Blowby

How do you know when it’s time to do serious work on a diesel engine, or any engine for that matter? Well the following video may give a clue. This is an example of way too much blow by in the engine.