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The Anxious Do-It-Yourselfer

RAY: This is kind of an interesting puzzle and I'm sure there are some people that will get it immediately and there are others that won't ever get it. This is often the case. I tried this on my brother and he scratched his head for 20 minutes and left a big hole in his forehead.

A while back, I got a call from an anxious do-it-yourselfer. He was doing a clutch on his Honda. I think it was like a 1981 Honda Accord. Or an 82 or maybe even an 83.

Anyway, he and his mother-in-law were out in the driveway and they had the thing jacked up and were attempting to remove the transaxle.

This is what front-wheel drive cars have. They have the transmission and the axle assembly and the final drive assembly in one big box called the transaxle. I order to replace the clutch, you take that whole thing out and then you put your new clutch in, you put that whole thing back in, you shove the axles back in, and you put the tires back on and a month and a half later you drive away in.

He called me up and he said, “I’ve got a problem.” He said, “I'm attempting to take off the transaxle and I've got power steering fluid coming out of the transmission.” Whoo. He said what is power steering fluid? He said, “Is that the lubricant that's in the transmission?” And I said, “No! What's in the transmission is 10W40 motor oil. The lubricant is for the gears in the transmission.” He said well why is the power steering fluid going into the transmission? I pull off these hoses and power steering fluid comes out of them.”

And I said, “HmmmmMmmmmHmmmmmMmmmHmmmmmmm.” Anyway, just fill in the blanks and you'll have the answer. So, what did I say to this anxious do-it-yourselfer?

Answer the Puzzler »

Remember last week's puzzler?

What's the Battery Breakthrough?

RAY: Today’s puzzler comes from real life. One of my neighbors was out walking his dog and he stopped by my house and we got to talking. Now his dog was a pretty big dog, and this dog kept looking at my left leg and drooling. I don't know why. But at any rate, that doesn’t have anything to do with this puzzler.

This neighbor and I started talking about car batteries, and he said, “Gee, you know, years ago, I remember that people would go out to start their cars on cold winter mornings. And on any given cold winter morning, about 20% of the cars wouldn't start, you turn the key and the car would go RuhRruuhRuuhRuuuuh.”

And he wanted to know why batteries are so good now. He said, “This doesn’t seem to happen anymore, so what is the new battery technology over the past 20 years?

He wanted to know what it is that makes newer cars start more reliably than they did 25 years ago.

It's so easy to start your car now, for the most part. So the question is what's going on here? What new technology? What breakthrough has taken place?