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Old 11-29-2008, 03:10 PM   #37 (permalink)
Peter B
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Minnesota
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bbjsw10: What store did you order that "T" fitting through?? I may go the same route.

All this talk about keeping the engine warm in cold weather reminds me of something my father had hooked up to his car ('65 Plymouth Barracuda) to keep the engine warm enough to start during the brutally cold winters we had back in the 1970s. He worked at the Sperry Univac plant in Rosemount, and all the employees had to park their cars outside in a huge lot. Remember, this was back in the days when cars often didn't start in really cold weather.

He read about a device in Popular Mechanics magazine that would cycle the car's engine on and off without anyone in the vehicle. Not wanting to spend money on the plans, and being a techie, he built the device based on the description in the magazine. Not sure exactly how it worked, but it did not have an electronic brain at all. Just a bunch of sensors and solenoids and transistors and timers, etc. I know there was a temp sensor in the exhaust manifold. When the manifold temp dropped below a certain level, the starter would crank and the car would start up and run for X minutes and then shut itself off. It even employed a vacuum sensor so that if the car didn't start after X seconds of cranking, the starter would stop cranking for X seconds before trying again. All in all, a pretty clever set up. He called it "Maynard's Magic Motor Minder" and apparently people really did a double take when an empty car in the parking lot would suddenly start its engine with no one around.
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