Do your nostrils itch whenever you turn on your car’s A/C? Does your cabin have this moldy smell even with air fresheners? Then you probably need to change cabin air filter.

A clogged air filter not only lowers the quality of air in your cabin; it can also bust the A/C blower. So be sure to regularly clean or replace your cabin air filter every year or every 12,000-15,000 miles.

Changing cabin air filter is so easy you can do it in less than an hour. For a guide on how to change cabin air filter, watch the video below.

Cogged V-Belt

This is called the V or vee belt because its cross section is V-shaped. This is narrower than the serpentine belt and is usually not more than half an inch wide. Its tapered sides fit around a pulley or gear with matching grooves or teeth on it. This kind of belt is better to use with high load applications; its grooves give it a firmer grip on the pulleys or gears, preventing slips and prolonging the belt’s life.

There’s also the standard V-belt. It’s just as wide as the cogged v-belt but it has no grooves on its underside. It’s ideal to use only in light load applications which doesn’t require the precise turning of gears.

Drive belts used in automobiles today can be categorized mainly into two: the serpentine and the cogged V-belt.

Serpentine Belt

Also called a poly-V-belt (because its cross-section looks like many Vs put side by side), this type of drive belt is so named because it’s long that it can “snake” around different pulleys. Usually half to one inch wide, it is flat-faced on one side and has lengthwise grooves on the other. The grooves, which can be as many as eight, fit in similar lengthwise grooves on the sides of the pulleys and lessen the belt’s tendency to slip.

Cam walk, or excessive endplay, can cause premature gear wear as well as damage in the cam lobes and lifters. And because it can practically destroy your engine in just a short time, you should prevent it at all cost. Fortunately, “to prevent it at all cost” can refer to a very simple solution—putting a cam thrust button onto the camshaft.

The cam thrust button, or simply cam button, can be made with metal or nylon. It is placed onto the end of the shaft (at the engine front) so it will not “walk” all the way to the timing chain cover. However, because the button will merely serve as an extension of the camshaft, it will also hit the timing chain cover. Thus, if your timing cover is just made of tin sheet, it is recommended that you also replace it with a stainless or aluminum cover with a sturdier design.

Measuring the spark plug gap with a gauge

When we you hear “spark plug gap,” you should think of only one thing: the distance between the spark plug’s side/ground and center electrodes. (The side electrode is the L-shaped wire protruding from the spark plug’s threaded end, while the center electrode is the less-protruding wire coming from the, uh, center.)

Knowing that should give you an idea what to gap or re-gap the spark plug means; it is adjusting the gap between the center and side electrodes. Now, the question is, why re-gap the spark plug? Isn’t the spark plug already properly gapped by the manufacturer?

Well, spark plugs of course have been gapped according to the number of the engines they’re supposed to match. But some engines require slightly-different spark plug gap measurements to efficiently burn fuel; hence, the need for re-gapping.

To re-gap a spark plug, check with the vehicle’s emission control information sticker commonly found in the engine compartment. Use a spark plug gap gauge to adjust the gap according to the sticker information.

SAE ratings sometimes come with a “W” between two numbers, like SAE 10W-40. Such ratings are called multi-grade—as opposed to the single viscosity ratings, which read only as “SAE 30,” for example. Lubricants with multi-grade ratings behave differently in cold and in warm weather conditions. An SAE 5W-20, for example, flows like an SAE 5 in 0^oC but acts like an SAE 20 in regular engine operating temperature.

API gives ratings such as SA, SB, SM, SL, and CF. “S” means the oil is for spark-ignition engines, while “C” means it is for diesel engines that use compression to combust fuel. The second letters, on the other hand, indicate which engine models the lubricants are compatible with. An API SL rated oil, for example, can be used for 2004 and older engines, while an SA rated lubricant can’t be used in engines built later than 1963. SA up to SH ratings are now considered obsolete and should not be used in modern engines.

image from highperformancepontiac.com

Engine oils are rated according to their viscosity or resistance to flow. A lubricant’s viscosity is indicated by the letter-number combination written on its label.

The numbers are usually prefixed by acronyms, which stand for the different organizations that use their own viscosity index for lubricants. Here are the commonly used acronyms and the organization they stand for:

SAE - Society of Automotive Engineers

ACEA - Association des Constructeurs Europeens d’Automobiles (European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association)

API - American Petroleum Institute

ILSAC - International Lubricant Standardization and Approval Committee

To ensure fuel combustion efficiency, your engine pistons are fitted with piston rings. Held in place by canals or grooves on the piston walls, the piston rings have very important functions that generally keeps your emission cleaner and your engine’s fuel combustion less sloppy.

Pistons usually come with three rings.They can be classified into compression and oil control rings.

Compression ring – Fitted on the first and second grooves from the piston crown, this type of ring is used to lock in or seal the compression in the combustion chamber. It prevents blow-by or combusted gases from getting into the crankcase. Because it comes into contact with the cylinder, it also serves to transfer heat from the piston to the cylinder wall and finally to the water jackets between the cylinders.

Oil control ring – This is usually the third or fourth ring from the top. It scrapes excessive engine oil off the cylinder wall so oil won’t get burned along with fuel in the combustion chamber. Aside from producing darker emission, burning of engine oil produces carbon residue, which may accumulate in the cylinder head and spark plug.

There you are speeding at 140 kph on some desert highway, when your engine started to slow down. Still keeping the gas pedal floored, you notice your engine’s labored running so you pull over. You open the hood, et voila! You get an instant steam bath!

You ask, why in the world would your engine overheat? Is it the desert heat? Or it’s just too sunny? Could it be your 140kph speed? The answer: probably. But if you come to think of it, your engine should be able to run in whatever desert in the world in whatever weather (unless it’s a cool climate-only engine, if there’s such a thing). Besides, you haven’t even reached your speedometer’s 200 kph max, so why should your engine buckle at 140?

Well, the many reasons are listed below.

1. Damaged radiator cap.

The radiator cap is a special seal at the top of your radiator. It maintains high pressure in the radiator so the coolant wouldn’t boil and evaporate. It does that with its pressure relief valve, which allows it to let in air when the internal pressure gets too low.

So check your radiator cap for cracks, worn-out seal and gasket, and damaged pressure valve. Any of these can surely ruin your cooling system’s efficiency by letting the coolant boil and evaporate out of the radiator.

2. Conked-out temperature sensor.

Your vehicle has many temperature sensors in it. But most of them are for monitoring your engine’s temperature. There’s the coolant temperature sensor underneath the bumper and radiator, and there’s the engine coolant temperature sensor that monitors, of course, coolant temperature.

If they’re conked out, they wouldn’t be able to send correct signals to your vehicle’s ECM, which can adjust the engine’s processes to prevent overheating.

Drive belts transfer mechanical power between the engine and several other components through different gears and pulleys. These gears and pulleys have different sizes so that the power they would generate will be enough to run the components they are connected to. Here’s a list of the main components driven by the drive belts and gears.

1. Crankshaft – Being the engine part turned by the pistons, this generates the mechanical power. Its gear is usually the biggest and is found at the bottom of the engine’s front side.
2. Alternator – The part that transforms mechanical energy into alternating currents needed by the electrical system, which charges the battery. The alternator pulley is commonly the smallest of the belt-driven gears.
3. Air Conditioning Compressor – It’s what pumps the A/C system’s refrigerant and compresses it into high-pressured vapor.
4. Water Pump – It circulates coolant in the cooling system. It’s usually located beside the crankshaft.
5. Power steering pump – This part circulates the hydraulic fluid so that there’s be enough hydraulic pressure in a power steering system.

Though many components are run in the drive belt system, their functions can actually be categorized into two: to keep the engine from overheating and the battery from getting discharged.