What is a Car Cooling System?

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Mark Blocker for Expert Village. In this segment, we're going to give a brief overview of how the cooling system works, what it consists of, and how to properly make a repair or replace a hose. The cooling system basically provides the engine coolant and keeps the engine from over heating. The coolant is made up in the older vehicles where you see the green colored antifreeze that's ethanol glucose and it's run in a mixture of water usually somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 70 percent antifreeze and the rest remainder being water. There's two primary reasons for this. It prevents the water from freezing, drops the freezing temperature much lower...as we know when water freezes it expands and inside of an engine block it can easily crack the block or damage other components. So, it's extremely important that this coolant not be allowed to freeze. The other benefit is...with the presence in there...by the use of pressure, by the pressure cap on the radiator...antifreeze also boils at a higher temperature. So, with the induction of pressure, the resistance to a higher temperature to boiling also allows the engine coolant to run at a much hotter temperature prior to boiling, turn it into a gas and escaping the vehicle. So, it provides two main benefits; the prevention of freezing and the assistance of being able to run higher temperatures and more efficiently dissipate the heat. The system is made up primarily of a radiator which its function is to cool the engine coolant down so the key regulates the engine temperature. It uses hoses to transducer that or to carry that liquid from the engine to the radiator and it uses a thermostat which is a bimetallic spring that's designed to open at a given operating temperature and that thermostat holds the water in the engine until that water has reached that operating temperature. Then the valve opens allowing the water to pass to go into the radiator to be cooled. Thus, the thermostat regulates the engine's operating temperature by regulating its coolant temperature. This is extremely important because a cold engine requires more fuel than a hotter engine. So, if we keep and engine running at a given prime operating temperature it can run more efficiently, give us better gas mileage, and better performance... also extends the life of the engine. So, that's the functions of the cooling systems and it's two basic components. It also provides heat to the interior for comfort of the passengers and that's carried with two hoses into a heater core that's mounted inside the vehicle and a fan and vent, regulate their air flow and temperature. So, watch our next segment on draining the coolant."