Jump your battery

How to Jump Your Battery

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

A battery has a negative terminal and positive terminal. Each terminal will be labeled with a symbol. A plus sign (+) indicates positive, and a minus sign (-) indicates negative. On a top-post battery, the posts are located on the top of the battery, and the positive post is larger than the negative post. On most vehicles, the existing battery cables are red and black. Black is negative, red is positive. On a side-post battery, the posts are located on the side of the battery. Always observe the color of the cables and the negative and positive symbols.

Steps

1. Get a working vehicle. Bring it to the disabled vehicle.
   
2. Verify that both the dead battery and the rescue battery have the same voltage. Car batteries are usually 12 Volts. Truck batteries are usually 24 Volts.
   
3. Position the vehicles so that the car batteries are close enough to each other for your jumper cables to reach each one. Make sure the cars are not touching.
   
4. Turn off both engines. Open the hood of each of the cars.
   
5. Turn off the headlights, wipers, radios, and all accessories on both cars. Unplug anything charging in the cigarette lighter.
   
6. Untangle and unwind the jumper cables. The jaws of the cable clamps are designed to bite into the soft metal of the battery clamps that are attached to the battery terminal posts.
   
7. If goggles or gloves are available, put them on now. Have anyone not wearing safety equipment stand clear of both vehicles.
   
8. Visually check both batteries for cracks, leaks, and damage. If any of these exist, STOP. Call a tow truck, do not attempt to jump the car, do not even connect the cables.
   
9. Connect a red clamp first to the positive post on the dead battery. Then connect the other red clamp to the positive post on the good battery.
   
10. Connect a black clamp to the negative post of the good battery.
    
11. Connect the only remaining clamp (a black clamp for the dead battery) to a solid piece of grounded metal on the dead car. Avoid connecting this clamp to the negative post of the dead battery--do this only as a last resort. (See tips for suggestions on what to clamp to)
    
12. Start the working vehicle.
    
13. Let it idle for ~5 minutes. Never race the engine. If idle is not enough to charge the dead battery then it's not going to charge.
    
14. Try to start the disabled vehicle. If it doesn't start, wait five minutes and try again. Repeat until the disabled vehicle starts.
    
15. Remove the jumper cables from the vehicles in the reverse order from when you attached them.
    
16. Keep the recently-disabled vehicle's engine running a little above idle for at least five minutes, then on or at least at idle for at least twenty.
    

Tips

• When looking for a good ground for that last clamp, look for shiny metal around or on the engine. Painted, oily, or rusted metal will not work. Nuts, bolts, or other protruding shiny metal is best. There may be some sparking when you connect to a good ground. It's strongly recommended not to clip the last clamp to the dead battery (which would be an obvious choice) as the sparks that may fly when you complete the electrical circuit could ignite the hydrogen gas coming off the battery.
  
• Don't connect the black leads first and the red leads afterwards: if you would do that and accidentally drop the red cable onto the car's frame, a massive short-circuit will form, possibly welding the clamp to the chassis.
  
• It may be necessary to remove the disabled automobile's battery cables from the battery terminals and clean both cables and terminals. Use a stiff wire brush to remove all corrosion. Reconnect the cables to the battery terminals and jump the car.
  
• Do not use cheap jumping cables with thin wire. Use good heavy-duty jumping cables.
  
• Don't let the working vehicle leave for at least ten minutes. The dead battery must charge for a while, and sometimes will go dead again (especially if you do not keep the engine above idle).
  
• Remember that batteries are not always in the same place. Some vehicles have the battery under the hood, some behind the cab, and some are even in the trunk.
  
• Look at your jumper cables. Many will have instructions with pictures explaining the order to attach the clamps.
  

Warnings

• Never cross the cables while attached to a car battery.
  
• Make sure you are connected to the right posts.
  
• A charging or discharging battery creates hydrogen gas, which under the right circumstances will cause the battery to explode. This is why one must avoid connecting two batteries directly to one another (all four clamps on battery posts). Use this as a last resort when the primary method fails and you have taken proper safety precautions. Make sure you stand clear. There may be sparks which can cause an explosion.
  
• Keep your face as far away from the batteries as you can at all times.
  
• Tell people to back off. Batteries can explode if you don't do the job right.
  
• Always protect your eyes with goggles or other protection.
  
• If the alternator in the working car is either worn or very small there's a small chance it will break during this operation.
  

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Sources and Citations

• Jump-Starting a Car — Printable Reference Sheet
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Jump Your Battery. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Replace your windshield

How to Replace Your Automobile Windshield

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

This article is published for the purpose of educating the reader on the techniques and principles of auto glass installations and explaining the Aftermarket Auto Glass industry, for the purpose of helping the reader to make an educated decision in choosing a quality professional to replace their auto glass. This article is written to explain the process of aftermarket auto glass installations and is not to be used as a teaching tool or to instruct the reader on windshield installations. Your windshield is a safety device and should only be installed by a qualified professional. Due to the many manufacturers and various designs of automobiles this book is not written to be a complete explanation of the automotive industry’s auto glass technology.
"Your Windshield is a Safety Device"
"Your Windshield Can Save Your Life" by Raymond Clough

Steps

1. Remove the side and top moldings correctly. Don't pry the clips that hold them on; these clips are small plastic pieces specific for the vehicle and its molding. This saves time, but the result is that the molding will need to be glued on if no replacement clips are on hand. Time saved ten minutes or more and about $5.00 for the clips. Most are simple and totally astetic in value and are just an inch of plastic which is attached to the windshield. They do nothing for the windshield except make it look nice. Some are extremely complex with plastic clips and clamps which hold the molding securely to the windshield.
   
2. Cut out the windshield. This can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to almost an hour. The urethane which holds the windshield in place is flexible but extremely strong; this allows the glass to move and not crack from every stress placed on it during driving.
   
   • Use a cold knife to cut the urethane from the outside between the glass and the pinchweld. The major problem with this is when the previous installation has placed the glass close to the pinchweld and not allowing for sufficient space for the blade to drag it will break the glass causing shattering. Most often an aftermarket glass which has been pushed down too far to the pinchweld leaving only 1/8” or less for the cold knife blade to cut through. This causes the glass to break, shattering glass and making a mess.
     
   • Often the glass pieces will fall down into the defroster vent to be blown out later. Cutting the windshield out from the inside of the vehicle is the only other option. Using a special extended handle razor knife the urethane is cut with a repeated dragging motion. Many installers use power cutters which are faster but do more damage to the metal of the vehicle, scratching the paint in the pinchweld area is not a problem if the scratch is painted with a pinchweld primer which must be matched to the urethane.
     
   • This stuff is tough up to 1000 psi. Practice is the key, how much pressure to put on the razor without breaking it. How long to make your strokes so you don’t slip and cut the dash board or the head liner. It all takes practice but when you are not relying on repeat customers you can do it fast. The pinchweld has the old urethane about ¼” thick more or less and it needs to be trimmed down to 3/16” or about 3 mm.
     
   
   
3. Prepare the glass with a primer specially matched to the urethane adhesive. The purpose of the primer is to open the molecules of the frit band (the black band around the perimeter of the windshield) this is done to prepare the glass to accept the molecules of the urethane. If your installer is in a hurry, ignorant or just does not care if your windshield pops out he will skip this step. After the glass is activated, the molding is attached to the glass and the urethane is next.
   
4. Apply the urethane with an electric caulking gun. (Insert Picture) The best thing for the new urethane to adhere to is the old urethane. (Insert Picture of contaminated pinchweld under the molding) It must be clean and free from dirt, oil or other contaminants. A problem installers have is wind blowing dust onto the pinchweld before the urethane adhesive has been applied. This wind is caused from not only the weather conditions but other vehicles including the big trucks.
   
5. Place the windshield in, carefully aligning the top bottom and sides by sight alone. Some vehicles have mounting block for the bottom of the windshield to rest on some do not. Careful not to touch the frit band because the oils and dirt from your hands can contaminate the activated glass and reduce the effectiveness of the activator. Use gloves, either latex or Nitrile to eliminate contaminates from reducing the ...
   

Warnings

• The author shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be cause directly or indirectly by the information contained in this article or by any information omitted from this book of the subject matter contained herein.
  

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Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Replace Your Automobile Windshield. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.