Poor Man's CRYOGENIC AUTO PARTS TREATMENT?

[60dgrzbelow0]

Many moons ago... when "Mr. Pink" (3400-95-Modified) was in the throws of agony over his amazing engine in "The Pink Car" destroying his timing sets like the "Iron Giant" eating railroad tracks for snacks... he mentioned the possibility of sending off his latest TS of choice to one of the companies that does "Cryogenic Treatment of Metal Parts" as a means of toughening up the TS in hopes of solving the problem once and for all.

Recently... I stumbled across a YouTube Geeky Guru Science Maven who offered the means of creating what he called "The Poor Man's Liquid Nitrogen". This entailed using readily available and inexpensive items for his experiment; such as Carbon Dioxide "Dry Ice" from a local Welding Supply House , a liter sized plastic Coke Bottle, a pint sized plastic Coke Bottle, a common pocket knife and a bottle 0f 99% pure Isopropyl Alcohol.

All he did was cut the tops off of both bottles and after poking a few holes along the base of the smaller bottle, he tucked the smaller on inside the larger bottle and then busted up a block of Dry Ice and placed the smaller chunks of the stuff down in between the base area of the two bottles. Then he proceeded to pour (poor,pore...LOL) the whole bottle of Isopropyl Alcohol around and on top of the Dry Ice. Within just a few minutes ...a dangerously cold liquid brew began to fill the inner small bottle and ...Voila! You now have a "Poor Man's Liquid Nitrogen"... or at least something cold enough that to prove its Cryogenic properties...he dipped a flower down into the clear, cold boiling liquid and when it emerged... it shattered like glass in his hands. He did some more experiments with things like cherries in lieu of rubber balls to shatter on the floor... etc.

When I saw this video... Mr. Pink's original idea came to mind and and I wondered whether this technique might work on my garage bench to harden say... a Timing Chain Set... My Pocket Knife... Head Bolts...and on and on... and be done for a lot less money than it would take to send these items off to be done professionally. Anyhoo... Here are some videos that might support the possibilities...after all... if it works...anything you "Freeze" will be three times as tough and last at least three times longer than usual...how about lifters? Camshafts? Hmmmmm.... The only limitations would be finding the right sized containers with enough room to lay down the parts and completely submerge them in the Cold Goo...

All of these videos support the notion that treating our own auto parts Cryogenically...might be done on the cheap...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d11TFkeqbwY&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPURmV8LHEM&feature=PlayList&p=08CBB81559F8B530&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=17

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BqNqlMiPsA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u_NW6p4ETk

[robertisaar]

bob, you find some of the strangest things on the internet....

that being said, this excites me.

apparently there is a fiero out there with a LS7 making like 450 lb-ft of torque at the wheels using a F40 transmission that had a few parts cryo-treated and hasn't been broken yet.... if i can replicate the process, the time and money it will save could be considerable.

[86FieroSEv6]

Question: Don't they have to control the cool down and warm up times to avoid excessive brittleness?

[robertisaar]

Question: Don't they have to control the cool down and warm up times to avoid excessive brittleness?

yes they do, otherwise heat shock (or i guess you could call it cold shock) will make the part useless...

[86FieroSEv6]

Next question: What do you propose as the poor man's set up for the cooling stages between a freezer and the cryo'? Sorry, but this is interesting to me.

[60dgrzbelow0]

yes they do, otherwise heat shock (or i guess you could call it cold shock) will make the part useless...

The hard part in all of this has always been how hard it was to get our hands on cheap Cryogenic Liquids. I think enough of this stuff can be created now cheaply and used to experiment with to see if the idea has more merit than just a science class experiment. Yes?

Robert... The physics we need to be concerned with are primarily the properties of Cast Iron parts in the aspect that steel and iron components will either expand or shrink in their dimensions 1/64 Millionths of an inch for every degree they are either heated or cooled... up and down the Fahrenheit Scale. The observations I have made about using the Isopropyl Alcohol are that the objects to be chilled could be suspended in the open space inside the perforated interior container (which serves as nothing more than a barrier between the space needed for the super-cooled alcohol to collect and the Dry Ice on the periphery acting to chill the fluid down. I suspect that some level of gradual temperature control could be accomplished by first pre-cooling the parts in a cooling chamber lined with aluminum screen door screen material and packed solidly behind the screen sections with symmetrical planks of Dry Ice. This would serve to avoid taking the metal objects too suddenly from room temperature to Cryogenic Levels and causing the outer areas of the metal to contract much sooner than the more dense inner portions of the castings. Then... by means of thin sieves with the appropriate sized metering holes... the Isopropyl Alcohol could be introduced in a manner gradual enough to allow the entire metal piece to release its heat in a way that it shrinks and compresses its own atomic structure in a uniform manner. The same procedures can be designed to allow for the gradual increase in the interior ambient temperature of the Cryo-Box until the Test Piece has arrived at Room Temperature. All metal possesses the properties of ductility, malleability and hardness... so some testing of uniformly shaped blocks of Cast Iron and Steel could be subjected to these conditions and then tested with uniform sheer, stretch-to-failure and impact resistance at all four corners and sides of the steel surface...and on their interior areas as well, since Cryo treated parts are not just changed by the process on their outer surfaces. We can come up with standards of our own making that can be applied to a exemplars of normal blanks of Cast Iron versus the ones that is treated in the "FrankenCryo" Machine... The main things is that whatever ones pass muster on all of these tests (such as stock steel bolts being hardened to Grade 8.8 or better) these parts MUST retain their stock dimensional properties and not become "misfits" in the process. Oh...and as far as how to determine the uniformity of the heat loss or rise in the interior temp... Field Piece makes the HS36 HVAC Professional Multimeter that has the added cool feature of being able to plug in and digitally read very rapid temperature changes via K-Style Thermocouples. These Thermocouples can measure temperatures accurately down - 180 Degrees Celsius all the way up to 1,000 Degrees Celsius. One of their attachments can handle two Thermocouples and provide simultaneous temp readings...say at the top and bottom of the Cool Box to determine whether or not any differences in energy transfer are problematic ...or negligible. I own one of these tools...and since the device has a very long probe wire...it can be dipped down into the container at any elevation, depth or position to give proper readings. Please remember that everyone said that trying to make a home-made machine capable cleaning fuel injectors was probably not possible...and yet... Sometimes, things really can be done with a just a little effort and some experimentation. We will surely fail here and there...But won't it be "Cool" if this can be done by us...?

[robertisaar]

interesting process... i read up on the specifics of it and it actually changes the portions of the iron from "austenite" created by heating and quenching iron into "martensite". apparently the colder you can make the object, the more of the remaining austenite converts to martensite and becomes more consistent in terms of hardness, durability, resistance to shearing, all loads of fun stuff...

i believe i read that at a temp of ~-100*F, properties improved by a measure of 1.2-2.6 compared to the original pieces. these numbers improved all the way down to -300*F with measures of like 2.6-6.x and possibly further depending on the amount of austenite that is started with.

regardless, it's interesting. i have to wonder how cold the alcohol/dry ice mixture gets though... pure isopropyl alcohol is supposed to freeze solid somewhere around -89*C(-127*F)

[60dgrzbelow0]

interesting process... i read up on the specifics of it and it actually changes the portions of the iron from "austenite" created by heating and quenching iron into "martensite". apparently the colder you can make the object, the more of the remaining austenite converts to martensite and becomes more consistent in terms of hardness, durability, resistance to shearing, all loads of fun stuff...

i believe i read that at a temp of ~-100*F, properties improved by a measure of 1.2-2.6 compared to the original pieces. these numbers improved all the way down to -300*F with measures of like 2.6-6.x and possibly further depending on the amount of austenite that is started with.

regardless, it's interesting. i have to wonder how cold the alcohol/dry ice mixture gets though... pure isopropyl alcohol is supposed to freeze solid somewhere around -89*C(-127*F)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_bath

The temperature of Dry Ice is optimally at its coldest around -78 Degrees Celsius...which is a little less than half of how cold True Liquid Nitrogen can be... but nonetheless... this difference might even work to our advantage when it comes to preventing the 'Metal Shock' that might occur from suddenly immersing your solid hydraulic lifters into a container of Cryogenically chilled Alcohol. We won't know until we can test the idea. Hell... It might be that this turns out to be the BEST method, since it will not be nearly as cold as Liquid Nitrogen...and harden the most important areas needed...being the outer layer of the "skin" of the metal parts involved... And as for confirming its effects... the crystal structures of these metals are easily resolved and visualized under a common lab microscope...so it will be easy to look for any changes or differences between the "Before" and "After" exemplars...as long as they originate from the same casting/forging block(s). If the metal crystals remain large and loose...we failed...but if they appear much smaller and denser...SUCCESS! It would be nice to have these guys' equipment to D*ck around with our Test Exemplars... (Now now...be nice...Gentlemen)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwzjvk7WXq4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92HKgJ1rw7U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1x-vJ85sBA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1OYWT4sTRc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK3DPWRodZw&feature=related

[robertisaar]

true, i didn't think of that.... i wonder how easy it would to regulate temps even more precisely and be able to move a lifter from say a 20*F bucket to a 0*F bucket to a -20*F bucket all the way down to the lowest possible temp we could achieve with this alcohol/dry ice mix over the reccomended 48-72 hour cold soak/reheating process... i wonder if there are any colder substances that aren't considered exotic like Liquid nitrogen...

nitrous oxide has a melting point of -91*C and a boiling point of -88*C, so i don't think we could count on that

[60dgrzbelow0]

As for the proper testing tools that we can all access...why not lets make our own? All we would need for the testing equipment is a fixed weight with a hardened steel point fixed to one end...when dropped from a certain height or when fixed to a swinging arm with the test subject materials mounted sideways...the armature with weight on a pinion sleeve with a ball bearing could be dropped from a pre-measured height and allowed to impact the Control and Test Samples ...First the control "Before" and then the "Frozen" After using a consistent methodology when doing this procedure and then look for significant degrees of difference in the amount of penetration between the two samples (tested three times on each sample ). The same Test Equipment would serve to examine the two samples for their resistance to shearing when fastened in a vise and subjected to the same dropped weight on a flat, hardened metal side of the Drop Weight to see which one has more or less ductility between the two samples. Designing and building this device would be a breeze. Any significant differences between the Control Sample(s) and the Frozen Test Samples(s) would be consistent proof of the chilling and testing procedures for accuracy and fairness in evaluating things.

[60dgrzbelow0]

true, i didn't think of that.... i wonder how easy it would to regulate temps even more precisely and be able to move a lifter from say a 20*F bucket to a 0*F bucket to a -20*F bucket all the way down to the lowest possible temp we could achieve with this alcohol/dry ice mix over the recommended 48-72 hour cold soak/reheating process... i wonder if there are any colder substances that aren't considered exotic like Liquid nitrogen...

nitrous oxide has a melting point of -91*C and a boiling point of -88*C, so i don't think we could count on that

Liquid Helium is MUCH colder than Liquid Nitrogen...But a very exotic material to find as a Cryogenic Fluid... Oh...about that arbitrary 48-72 hour time line of re-normalizing the treated materials... that number seems so vague and broad as to lose its meaning...since there is a HUGE difference between waiting two days versus three. It makes me think that the companies touting this as part of their procedures have done so to scare off anybody from imagining they can try this on their own. The other aspect is that if the energy transfer happens so suddenly when making things so super cold.. so super fast... why would it be necessary to wait for any appreciable length of time ...when its all happens so very fast on an atomic level? I'm suspicious that our procedures could be sped up and completed with a lot less fan-fare and delay... For my example... "Man Overboard" in the Bering Sea means that an unprotected man would live for around two to three minutes when submerged in the 28 degree F sea water (salt lowers the freezing temp) as the heat of his body at 98.6 Degrees F would only take that much time to be robbed from body before dying from exposure and lowered body temperature....not two or three days...

[onefastV6]

Not worth messing with in my oppinion, as I can get parts cryogenically treated for a reasonable cost.
I was quoted $50 to do a set of rocker arms, valve springs and two timing sets.

[60dgrzbelow0]

I'm going to "make a batch" of this stuff and drop in my razor blades and see if they last longer after this treatment... Just to see if the Alcohol really is cold enough to make a difference...

[60dgrzbelow0]

Not worth messing with in my oppinion, as I can get parts cryogenically treated for a reasonable cost. I was quoted $50 to do a set of rocker arms, valve springs and two timing sets.

Right... Have at it... But... where is the fun in that? We show you "The Funny" when we do stuff like this... The uninterested or those wanting to shell out of their wallets to solve the problems need not apply.

[onefastV6]

Right... Have at it... But... where is the fun in that? We show you "The Funny" when we do stuff like this... The uninterested or those wanting to shell out of their wallets to solve the problems need not apply.

How much are you spending on the supplies?
I think it is cool, but I don't trust doing back yard science on my internal engine parts.