Fix It

A hissing noise coming from the engine of your vehicle combined with liquid spillage from the car can mean trouble for your vehicles exhaust or intake manifold. Such signs can be symptomatic of a manifold leak, which is when your exhaust or intake manifold leaks oil or coolant. If you notice a manifold leak, its important to stop the leak immediately because it can pose a hazard to the passengers in the vehicle.

Repairing the Manifold

If the manifold is leaking due to damage to the exhaust or intake manifold, or the general wear and tear of it, then the most effective way to stop the manifold leak is to repair and replace the manifold. A manifold can be removed from the vehicle and replaced with something new so that the vehicle no longer leaks. If the manifold just has some small cracks in it that are causing the leak, another repair alternative is to have the cracks welded together rather than purchasing and installing a new manifold.

New Gasket

A new gasket that seals the manifold is one way to stop a manifold leak. If a gasket is cracked, it is no longer able to seal and maintain the connection with the manifold, thereby creating a gap between the manifold and the exhaust pipe. Shear stress to the gasket of the manifold is part of the normal wear and tear of the vehicle due to the thermal contraction and expansion that happens each time the engine is turned on and off.

Sealant Solution

You can try to stop a manifold leak by coating the gasket or manifold with a leak sealant. Leak sealants, which are available at auto repair shops, are applied directly onto the affected area of the vehicle and act as a means of sealing the leak so that no more fluid can be lost. This solution is simpler than attempting to replace the manifold or gasket.

Accurate Assessment

A manifold leak can only be stopped if youve isolated the problem accurately. If you misdiagnose the cause for the leak, or think its the exhaust manifold when its really the intake manifold, then you risk prolonging the repair and, meanwhile, the vehicle continues to lose fluids. An accurate assessment is necessary for stopping a manifold leak, so its important to learn how to diagnose and troubleshoot the problems and locate the source of the leak.

Motor oil insures your cars engine runs properly and provides you with reliable transportation. The oil should be changed according to the manufacturers instructions for optimal performance and longevity.

Function

Fresh motor oil is an amber color. Black oil is oil that has collected dirt and impurities from your engine. The purpose of motor oil is to lubricate the moving parts of the cars engine so it can perform as specified. When oil is black, it means its viscosity (the ability to flow as a liquid) is impaired. It will not flow and lubricate as easily and the engines moving parts will suffer more wear from daily activities and wear out more quickly.

Solution

All car manufacturers have different standards for motor oil. The optimal amount of time to change oil is usually measured in miles. The common rule of thumb used to be 3,000 miles, but many auto manufacturers have increased that to 7,500 miles. For best results, er to your cars operation manual or contact your auto manufacturer or a qualified and licensed mechanic. It is best to er to these sources as it differs for each car.

Considerations

Black oil indicates engine health. Black oil generally means the engine requires an oil change. Engines also can use up oil as they age or are used more frequently. If the car is driven more than usual, changing the oil before the mileage limit specified by the car manufacturer is recommended.

Several things can cause a fuel pump to begin to fail, such as electrical problems which can prevent an adequate amount of voltage from flowing through the circuit that supplies power to the fuel pump. The failing fuel pump can then cause other problems that vehicle owners should be aware of.

Vapor Lock

Residual fuel pressure should remain in a vehicles fuel system even if a fuel pump has quit running. However, a leaky fuel pump can allow the system to lose pressure rapidly. In hot temperatures, a vehicle can experience vapor lock if residual fuel pressure gets too low.

Pressure

After checking a fuel pumps pressure specifications, a test can then be performed to compare that with the current pressure being produced by the pump. A pressure reading that isnt high enough often indicates a weak and failing fuel pump.

Tests

There are several types of test that can be performed on a fuel pump to see if its failing, such as a dead pressure test which reveals the total output pressure of the fuel pump. Another test is called a fuel volume test which is helpful in making sure the fuel pump is supplying enough fuel to meet the engines needs.

For most people, a "bad" brake rotor is one with a few scratches and grooves in the surface that cut into the pad, or one thats wavy and warped. But theres a lot more going on with your brake rotors than you might see on the surface -- and even thats bad enough as it is.

What is a "Bad" Rotor?

A lot of things can go wrong with a brake rotor. Most obvious are mechanical faults like grooves in the rotor caused by harder particulates in the pad material, cracks in the rotor and waviness or warping in the rotor surface. A front brake rotor must regularly absorb about 30 to 35 percent of all of the energy that goes into moving your car, which creates a lot of heat. Heat, among other things, causes the rotors metal to expand; when the metal cools and contracts, certain zones in the metal will cool faster than others. The uneven cooling pull those zones in different directions, causing the rotor surface to warp and become wavy. Extreme heating can also affect the metals crystalline structure, causing even bigger long-term problems.

Grooved Rotors

All brake rotors that arent brand-new exhibit a certain amount of grooving on the rotor surface. When the grooves are microscopically small, the peaks between the grooves will cut into the brake pad material. Simultaneously, the harder particles in the pad will resist this cutting and abrade the sides of those grooves. Eventually, the grooves will get large enough to be visible and cut large, matching grooves in the pad. So, its not a matter of if the grooved rotor will cut into your pad -- and vice versa -- but rather how far and how much the pads will deepen those grooves. If the rotors dont exhibit grooves deep or sharp enough to catch a fingernail, then you can replace the pads without machine-work or replacement. You can put new pads on a deeply-grooved rotor, but bear in mind that a) it will take some time for the pads to "bed in" and conform to the grooves in the rotor, b) while bedding in, the pads will rapidly accelerate groove widening and c) grooves create weak points in the rotor, increasing the odds that it will crack or shatter.

Warping

A warped rotor could easily eat your new pads alive, and may damage other, more expensive parts in the brake system. This is particularly true for some cars with antilock braking systems. An ABS system works by boosting or dropping brake pressure to each wheel. If the crests of the waves in your rotor are further apart than the pad is long, then the entire pad will drop in between the waves. When the crests come along, theyll shove backward on the pad, creating tiny fluid pressure fluctuations in the brake lines. These oscillations can damage the antilock brake pressure modulator, which costs far more to replace than itll cost you to have the rotors machined flat. So, if your rotors are warped, new rotors are advisable, particularly since new rotors arent usually much more expensive than machining. And, after machining, youll wind up with thinner rotors that are more prone to overheating and structural failure.

Material Changes

This little-known, but endemic, problem has both plagued and bewildered brake mechanics for a century or more. Long ago, mechanics noticed that, after the rotors for warpage or overheating, cars would often roll back into the shop when the rotors re-warped a few months later. And the re-warping problem has existed as alternately a puzzle or a myth -- depending upon who you asked -- since then. But, fairly recently, engineers have discovered that, following an episode of extreme overheating, the areas of the rotor that got the hottest would change in crystalline structure from the normal ferrite structure to the far harder cementite. Cementite, also known as iron carbide, is much like a ceramic and has far different properties in terms of hardness, abrasiveness and thermal conductivity. Think of chunks of oak floating in frozen ice cream, and youve got the right idea. Once these cementite spots form and penetrate the rotor surface to more than a few nanometers, the rotor is shot and will quickly self-destruct.