In the recent past, rains have been on the high side. Whenever there is rain, all places are wet and cool. However, this coolness does not necessarily transform into coolness of the vehicle engine. Very many vehicles have over- heating problems even during wet seasons.
While the cooling system today is more reliable, the main components of the cooling system have remained the same. A basic cooling system consists of liquid coolant being circulated through the engine. The circulation is to control the high temperatures in the engine as a result of the combustion.
Previously, engines used to be air cooled, but those are very few now and are to be found only in the Volkswagen, Deutz, and a few other vehicles. The modern motorcycle has not changed much, it is air cooled although a few are also water cooled. That is why we shall concentrate on the liquid cooling system.
Among the parts on the cooling system are the radiator, water pump, cooling fans, pressure cap and reserve tank, thermostat, bypass system, head gasket and intake manifold gasket, heater core, hoses and coolant. Each of the above can cause your vehicle to malfunction in ways related to over-heating.
The radiator is the main store where water is broken down into smaller parts to easily transfer heat into the air stream. The fins on the radiator must allow easy flow of air, otherwise if clogged there will be an overheating problem. Inside the radiator are normally two tanks one at the top and another at the bottom of the radiator. They are each connected via hose to the engine. The lower hose takes the cool coolant into the engine while the hose on the upper radiator is used to channel the hot coolant from the engine back into the radiator.
 The radiator fans are normally connected right behind the radiator on the engine side. Their work is simply to keep the air flow going through the radiator especially when the vehicle is going at slow speeds or when stopped but the engine is running. If these fans stopped working every time you came to a stop, the engine temperature would begin to rise. On today’s engines, the electric fan is controlled by the vehicle’s computer through a temperature sensor.
As coolant gets hot it expands. Because the cooling system is sealed, any expansion of the coolant increases pressure. This pressure, with the increased boiling point of ethylene glycol (in the anti freeze) will help vehicles reach temperatures above 250 degrees. This however should have the radiator cap also sealing the pressure correctly.
The radiator cap is a simple device which will maintain pressure in the cooling system up to a certain point. If the pressure build up is high, a spring loaded valve will release any extra pressure and any expanded coolant will go into the reservoir tank. There is another valve on this closed cooling system to allow a vacuum in the cooling system to draw the coolant back into the radiator. The most important maintenance to your cooling system is flushing the radiator periodically.
An engine that is overheating will destruct itself. Proper maintenance of the cooling system is key to long life and trouble free vehicle.
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written by Joseph(usa), March 10, 2010
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written by Rugangura, March 11, 2010
The correct ration is 50% to 50% i.e one litre of Ethylene glycol To one litre of water. You must know the capacity of your radiator then. Thank you.
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