h a l f b a k e r yAsk your doctor if the Halfbakery is right for you.
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Forever car
Built to repair by yourself, alone, after the fall. | |
Cars go fast and are full of computers. But after the apocalypse the computers might turn on you, the gas will get stale and it will be hard to find new tires and charge up batteries.
BUNGCO introduces the Forever Car! Several attributes of this car make it amenable to long use and ad hoc service
for Omega men and women.
1. Moonshine powered. Sure, run it on gas while you got it, but when the gas gets stale and weeds overgrow the gas stations this car runs as well or better on ethanol. The motor also has a running mode to produce heat, with a built in thermostat and flat place to distill your moonshine.
2. Tractor tires. Tractor tires last for decades. Yes, you must go slow with these solid rubber noninflatable tires but you should not be madmaxing around at 100 mph after the apocalypse. There might be stuff in the road. Between the tractor tires, high clearance and all wheel drive you can go over soft obstacles and around sharp / burning / caustic ones.
You can put regular inflatable tires on too, to use for your commute. Car comes with 8 extra tractor tires each in oxygen proof lined fabric bags, for your kids and grandkids.
3. No battery. The engine is started by a spiral spring, which is wound back up in the course of driving. If the spring breaks there is a fold out handle for you to crank the engine by hand. If you remember to park on hills, you can get rolling and bumpstart the forever car.
Once in motion the alternator will provide some electricity for your CB radio and spotlight.
4. No rubber. Rubber shmubber. A mayfly when it comes to longetivity, that rubber. Instead of belts the Forever Car uses chains - the same gauge for each application. Spare links and repair kit comes with. Gaskets are ceramic and metal.
5. Antifreeze. See #1, above.
6. Oil. This one took some thinking and several here are still wagging their gray beards and squinting their eyes discontentedly. Oil will deteriorate. Grease will deteriorate. Animal fat will be available but is of inconsistent lubricating quality. BUNGCO settled on powdered graphite. It will be tough to find powdered graphite after the apocalypse but graphite, like ethanol, has a near infinite shelf life. Hopefully the built in graphite reservoirs will hold you for several decades.
The runner up for lubrication was homemade lye soap which still might be a contender.
What is it? (Woodey Alen: Sleeper)
https://www.youtube...watch?v=Ctin21yrfcA
[pashute, May 28 2017]
Flintmobile
http://www.dailymai...ckbottom-price.html
Perhaps too simple. [whatrock, May 28 2017]
Depend(s)
https://www.depend.com/mens-solutions
Might need this, unless you have a 'forever body' to go with the car. [Sgt Teacup, May 30 2017]
[link]
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What's a great idea like yours doing on a half-baked website like this?!
This will be a thing, oh yes it will. |
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We already see a form of this 'forever car' in any pre-1996 North American model of the Chevy Blazer. Impossible to buy used; everyone who has one keeps it. |
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You need investors to bake this.
Does BUNGCo. take Monopoly money (ie: Canuck bucks)? |
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It is, of course - a diesel engine in that it's compression
ignited. I think you're going to have real trouble without
oil - especially engine oil. Perhaps you need to consider
using filtered vegetable oil and centrifugal filtering
onboard to extend filter life. At some point you're up
against the limitations of materials engineering (ie
infinite life unlubricated bearings don't exist). In fact -
you might be able to use your used lubricating oil as the
fuel (or better, one reservoir for both fuel and oil). I
don't know much about vegetable based oils, but I gather
the amazing people of Bouganville were doing quite well
converting old mine machinery over to the use of coconut
oils for fuel and lubrication. In fact, 1980's and earlier
spec mining equipment should be a great source of
inspiration for this project in general. |
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You can avoid antifreeze issues by making the power
density low enough that the engine can be aircooled. |
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Better than a spring might be an airstarter and tank -
with a hand pump (animal fat lubricated leather seal). |
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Forgo timing chains and belts by using direct gear drive to
the camshaft etc - or a linkage system with the camshaft
not overhead. |
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Clever things are being done with non-pneumatic tyres
with honeycomb like structure. They can't be punctured
but are softer than solid rubber. |
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It'll need a lowrange transfer case, PTO winch, snorkel
and full tube frame chassis because it's going to have a
hard life. Corrosion is always a concern - and Aluminium
having no fatigue limit is really unsuitable, so I'd be
looking for a spring-steel chassis with a full-passivated
treatment like tenifer for extremely long life - that or
very thick galvanising and supply a zinc stick for repairs. |
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It may also need armour plating, depending on how you
think a post-apocalyptic world will work. If this is to be a
Mad Max style war-wagon, we should start talking pintle
mounted Russian-made heavy machine guns too. |
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+ I have always wanted to be able to fix my own car...now I'd
like to do this! My ideas are like from Mad Max cars! |
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You could make a lot of money making these cars (or
more realistically, modifying existing cars along
these lines) and selling them to 'prepper'
communities in rural areas of the US. |
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What do you do about engine mounts, o-rings and gaskets,
rust, stretched timing chains, wiring sheathing,
synchronizers, clutch discs, brake pads, and spark plugs? |
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Somewhat preheated in William Gibson's "Idoru", but it's just one paragraph about a fashionable expensive vehicle that's allegedly eco-friendly by virtue of being designed to last a long, long, long, long time. |
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I was going to suggest a forever typewriter, then
some youngish flower asked "What is a typewriter?" |
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I detect a touch of the anti-technology about this, but
then I think that hi tech is what can make this work. You
can't build a car that will work forever, but you can
expand lifetime a lot. |
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First, you'd want a simple design, then have it operate
well within its limits. I'd go with a parallel twin, push-rod
design in the dimensions of a a quarter of a Chevy LS V8,
i.e. maintain the 4" bore/stroke. That way you have
hundreds of millions of engines with 6-8 pistons/con
rods/push rods/rockers to scavenge. |
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You'd want to avoid water cooling. For that reason a very
substantial aluminium block with the pistons spread
apart. It makes sense to follow the original spacing, but
skip a piston to lower density, so you're running pistons
1&3. The block should be channeled for lots more oil than
usual. You COULD go for a simple oil and change it. Or
you could have 10x the volume of a really good modern
oil. Add very stringent filtration, a pH indicator and
correction system and 500,000 miles should be easily
doable. |
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To reduce the need and load on the oil, roller bearing the
whole rotating assembly. Preferably with something
fancy and ceramic. Rollers rather than balls because a
replacement can be made with a lathe far more easily. |
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Then, run the whole thing at about 8.5:1 compression,
have a simple but say, quad redundant EFI set up. EFI
gets you operating in the optimum range most of the
time, that saves you from fuel-oil contamination and
carbon build up. It can also adapt on the fly to different
fuels, ethanol/methane/wood gas. Carburators are
messy nasty things and you'll never be able to machine
the right jets. |
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What is quad redundant efi? |
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For long term corrosion resistance, consider using bronze
for certain parts -- it's just as long lasting as stainless
steel, slightly less expensive, and, after the apocalypse,
might be easier to make repairs on. |
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Using a spring for a starter seems like a really bad idea,
since if you commute using the Forever Car before the
apocalypse, odds are the spring will break several times
over before The End. |
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I would use a compressed air starter like custardguts
suggested, but the main method of filling the air tank
should be compressor should be powered by the engine,
*possibly* with a manual backup compressor. |
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There are lots of hand tools which can are available in air
powered versions, and these are readily maintained
without needing electronics, so this is a valuable thing to
have regardless. |
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Do keep the hand crank (or foot pedal, more likely) for
engine starting, but also don't forget to incorporate an
overrunning clutch so it doesn't take your hand off. |
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As for lubricant, I would advise against using soap, as it is
hygroscopic, and will attract moisture. |
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Graphite is a maybe... but I think pneumatic bearings are
a better choice, as they could be even more long-lived. |
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Depending on the type of apocalypse one expects, oil
would not be a bad choice, since even if it breaks down
while in use in an engine, it does have a fairly long shelf
life, and there might be lots of gas/service stations (and
car parts stores) to loot. |
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Having an oil PH indicator on the dashboard seems like an
exceptionally good idea, since this can be equated to how
much longer one's oil will last. The anti-rust additives,
which imho are some of the most important components
of car oil, have a high PH, and as these chemicals get
used up, the PH goes down. |
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I like the idea of not having rubber in the engine... but I'm
not sure you could use metal and ceramic for all of the
things which rubber is used for. I suspect that for some
tasks (insulation?) synthetic materials would be a better
choice, even if they might be hard to replace decades in
the future. Maybe stock up on rolls of self-fusing silicone
tape? |
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Note that although engine chains last longer than rubber
belts, they can still stretch and break. You could
significantly reduce the stress on the timing belt/chain by
using an engine head which doesn't need as much
power... for example, the Beare-head engine. |
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Ok maybe two words: hemp and hydrogen. |
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That's three words. Maybe use less of it? |
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//What is quad redundant efi?// |
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Electronic Fuel Injection, although I also meant that
ignition should be similarly controlled. The amount of
computing power to effectively run a two cylinder engine
with huge flexibility for changing components or fuels is
child's play. So much so that you could easily have 4
redundant systems for minimal cost. The ability to swap
out engine management systems would be great for
troubleshooting too. Even in the post-apocalyptic world it
isn't that difficult to build an engine management system
from scratch, presumably the amount of electronics lying
around, I could probably cobble something together given
enough time. The alternative, the "simple" old school
stuff with carburetors and such requires a degree of
mechanical sophistication that can't really be cobbled at
all. They also tend to respond poorly to changing
conditions, fuel type, altitude or even weather might
need component changes to get them to run right. When
they're not running right, they're going to do damage. The
cautious way to run a carburetor is to have it meter
slightly too much fuel. This ends up contaminating the oil
and that's how your engine will die in the absence of oil
changes. |
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//The anti-rust additives, which imho are some of the
most important components of car oil, have a high pH,
and as these chemicals get used up, the pH goes down// |
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There's a few indicators of oil degradation, acidification
is one, increased conductivity/permittivity and I'd
suggest, because I often suggest this, an oxidative shift in
the redox poise. There's a lot of fairly simple ways of
monitoring those, and you could easily recondition a good
base oil. You can solve the degradation by switching to a
fluorinated oil. I assume they're not used in engines
because of the environmental concerns of having millions
of gallons of fluorocarbon sloshing around in backstreet
garages, but they're super long lasting and have stunning
lubricity. |
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//sure you could use metal and ceramic for all of the
things which rubber is used for// |
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There's not much left. Water system is gone. Keeping the
power density down and the oil volume up means no oil
cooler, or any reason to leave the block. No head gasket
necessary. Just make head and block one piece, or weld
the head on. For the electrical system, PTFE or other
fluorinated derivatives are your friend. They just don't
degrade. |
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For the cost of all this however, you could take
advantage of the extraordinary cheapness of mass
produced products. Simply buy 10x Toyota Camrys,
vacuum pack them and treat as disposable. |
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Better, shirley, to pack them in nitrogen? I'm not sure what happens to grease and oil in vacuo (not to mention battery electrolytes, brake fluid, power steering fluid, LCD displays...) but I bet it's not nice. |
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Hold on a minute, I want the recipe for these solid rubber, rubber-free tires. |
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If you want it to last decades that's a long time to keep mercury from ever coming into contact with the block... |
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Don't forget EMP resistance |
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Why would mercury come near it? And you could just
coat it with some kind of high-temp
lacquer/varnish/other coating. |
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Regular soda-glass; it's mercury-proof. |
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Earthenware jars are similarly suitable for mercury storage. |
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However, polypropylene has the advantage of not shattering when you drop it, saving you from spending the best part of two hours chasing little beads of mercury out from under everything. Apparently. |
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// That's three words. Maybe use less of it? // |
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Of course! It's so basic... |
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//Why would mercury come near it// |
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In a post-apocolyptic world IED's could have all kinds of odd ingredients. |
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Just need a forever driver. |
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>on a halfbaked website like this?
This is THE forever website, the only one that will survive
the lack of electricity and grass growing on gas stations. |
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Love to see some thought put into simplification of the
automobile. We think so much in terms of wildly complex
that now there's not one human alive that completely
understands
what's under that hood. |
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Seriously, find me one person who could walk you through
the construction of each part of a car, from raw material
mined from the Earth to finished product blasting down
the highway. |
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I'd like to see a vehicle that you could make from scratch
wearing only your post apocalypse gear, a raccoon skin
jock strap and a Bowie knife. |
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//a vehicle that you could make from scratch wearing only your post apocalypse gear, a raccoon skin jock strap and a Bowie knife// |
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I was hoping for something faster with wheels. |
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Cavemen could have built and flown rudimentary gliders with
a little training. Post apocalypse might be smart to jump right
into rebuilding the aerospace program. If you can make an
engine to drive a car you can make one to power an aircraft. |
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Start building that air force for WW4. |
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I think a more elegant solution to the transport problem in a post-apocalyptic era would be to simply start out closer to where you want to be. |
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However, for long-term post-apocalyptic motoring, wouldn't you want a solar-powered electric vehicle with supercapacitor storage? |
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Nope, Just flywheels. Good invention, the flywheel. Mechanical battery/physical energy storage... Shame they aren't used more. |
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Flywheels are heavy. You want light. If your car's
going to be built out of bamboo shoots and rabbit
skin you want to minimize the mass you're needing
to move around. |
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Plus, you're not going to have a lot of precision like
would be needed for an efficient flywheel. |
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Caps are great for short bursts of energy but
they're no replacement for batteries in this
instance. |
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Unfortunately, I think you're going steam day 2,
right after you establish who gets eaten first when
the food runs out. |
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/ a raccoon skin jock strap and a Bowie knife. |
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— doctorremulac3, May 28 2017 / |
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Pondering now the raccoon skin jock strap. Does tail go in front or in back? |
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We really don't want to know the answer to that question. |
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