Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Fuzzy Technical Writing

Explaining processes in technical writing

I found a flat head engine in a salvage yard recently. It was on a “Test Stand.” For those who are clueless about old engines be advised that I am the one eyed man in the land of the blind. I truly know very little about them except that I buy these books on them and am an avid reader.

For example there are four (4) sitting on my night stand this very moment. I was reading in them last night trying to figure out the answer to a problem that perplexes me regarding the lubrication system on a flathead. The four books are.

The complete Ford Flathead V8 Engine Manual, by Ron Ceridono
How to Build Classic Hot Rod V-8 Engines, George McNicholl
How to Build Ford Flathead V-8 Horsepower, George McNicholl
How to Build High-Performance Ignition Systems, Todd Ryden

Naturally the last of the four references deals with the electrical rather than the lubrication system and I mention it only to show a Flathead engine has a number of different systems necessary in order for it to run properly.

To begin with it was pointed out that many of these early engines in the 1940 did not have a filtering system at all. Yep! You just poured the oil in changed it at some appropriate interval. No oil filter to worry about. What an owner did have to worry about was engine life. These engines did not tend to last as long as one today does… I suspect that 25-50 Thousand miles was the expected range. Especially after takeing several of these older engines apart. They are full of what is call sludge which is primarily caused by moisture that built up and caused the oil to convert to a tar like greasy substance.

When I took the filter off this recent Test Stand engine I was dismayed to find that the bottom 25 percent was filled with this sludgy substance that had the texture and consistency of bearing grease….(Vasoline.) As I examined how the filtering system worked I concluded that it could function in one of two ways.

Possibility One: Like an old Coffey percolator. The oil was drawn from the sump (Oil Pan) entered from the bottom of the canister, went to the top, where it entered the flitering element and exited through a port located in the top side and returned to the engine.
Possibility Two: The oil entered from the bell housing port, flowed into the top port on the canister, went into the filter, overflowed the top and returned through an outlet tube that runs inside from top to bottom.

I suspect the answer is possibility #1 but am not confident in my conclusion. If anyone out there knows please let me know. (Not that most of my readers are into this sort of thing.)

The thing I find frustrating about How Too manuals is when you buy them they don’t tell you how to do what you want to find out. This is I believe for three reasons.

The writer is so knowledgeable that they assume the reader knows everything they do and do not feel it is necessary to explain the basics with say a simple flow diagram.

These books are written for an advanced reader who already knows the basics.

The writer has a typical engineering mentality and exists only in a world known to themselves.

It strikes me that the people who buy these books, buy them because they lack knowledge that the publications should provide. A flow or electrical or function diagram would do wonders for the ignorant and the author could still wax eloquently in Engineer speak about process they assume everyone already understands.