Show Description
This week on Car Talk, Gail committed the perfect crime--until she decided to confide in Tom, Ray, and 4 million listeners. Her tale of escape from the Exact Change lane of the Betsy Ross Bridge is one of our greatest auto-confessionals, especially when you find out who else is listening in.
Also, Male Answer Syndrome hits a new level as the boys try to diagnose Paul's problem with the electric brakes on his cattle trailer. Their first question is, "what are electric brakes?", and it's all downhill from there. Meanwhile, out in Colorado, Ann's got a crush on her mechanic, and wants to know how to win his heart, by any means necessary. All this, plus an ingenious engine-removal method, and we teach you how to sing the Blues in one easy lesson, on this week's encore edition of Car Talk.
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Reviews:
PB Turgeon: Hi Guys,
If electric cow-trailer brakes work like the air brakes on railroad cars, then they will *disengage* when energized, and engage otherwise. The principle here is that it's better for the brakes engage if the system fails: not a bad idea, really.
So: if there's a little resistance anywhere in the wiring that feeds power to Paul's Pennsylvanian cow-trailer, resistance from, say, a little corrosion in the connectors, then the current flowing to the four-way flashers will drop the voltage to the brake solenoids enough for them to engage - resulting in the observed behavior.
This hypothesis can be tested by seeing if the trailer wheels turn (brakes disengaged) when the wiring harness is unplugged. If they do not, then try cleaning up the wiring harness connectors!
But if the wheels *do* turn when the wiring harness is disconnected, and these brakes *engage* when energized, then your advice trumps mine... And heaven help Paul and his heifers if the fuse blows on a downhill grade!
Favorite moment:Tips on teaching drivers how to use a manual transmission - priceless!
See all other reviews by PB Turgeon The Slovak:
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See all other reviews by The Slovak Happy Jim: after learning to start in 1st gear, without using gas, let them start in 2nd gear using the gas.
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See all other reviews by Happy Jim The Slovak: This is by far one of the funniest episodes yet. I hope our tollbooth fugitive or the tollbooth man comes back in the future for stump the chumps.
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See all other reviews by The Slovak epona1: We'll definitely need an update on Ann's attempts to win her mechanic's heart.
Favorite moment:Gail getting sassy with the tollbooth guy. You tell him Gail!
See all other reviews by epona1 4Dad: I loved this show. Hilarious. Anyway, regarding the question about electric brakes for the cattle trailer - all of the electric brakes that I've seen operate with a magnet that is activated by the 12v current as it is applied. The magnet actually grabs to the inside face of the spinning drum, then pushes a lever that applies the brakes. So, more current, more brakes.
As for the problem of flashers activating the brakes, I would first check the ground wire on the trailer and the tow vehicle. Make the connection is clean, not rusty, and is metal to metal. If the ground is not working properly, then the current will find a way back to the tow vehicle some other way (ex. through the electric brakes) causing them to activate right along with the flashers. So, it surely could be something else, but I've had some crazy problems created by bad ground wires and connections.
Hope this helps.
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See all other reviews by 4Dad Krystal: This was a repeat, right? So there must be an update!
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