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Your boss may have had another reason for not using zinc.

using zinc to cathodically protect copper

A handy trick I stumbled onto in the weekend, is for putting lifters into the block.
Rather than trying to fart around with long nose pliers, I used a magnet on a telescopic rod.
Worked a treat.
If your workshops are anything like mine, there will be lots of grinding dust/shavings stuck to the magnet. To keep these out of my engine, I wrapped the magnet end with some sandwich wrap.
I'll neve rtry it with pliers again.

As I have been led to belive, Copper is lower on the table of noble metals, than zink. I think that contact between the two would dissolve the radiator.
I did a job years back where we were running a copper fuel line for a diesel heater, and we had to avoid a zinc plated flashing to preserve the lines.
Unless the boss was wrong about it?

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On ships, i think that it is known as a sacrificial anode

Another pantyhose trick or two.

They make great temporary fan belts. You can use this to your advantage on a date Before you go on that date, throw a couple pair of surgical gloves in the glove box. Ain't no lady going to let you get far with those greasy mitts.

Put a pair around the filter on your shopvac to keep the big stuff out. Makes blowing out the filter alot less PITA.

For those of you in snow country, carry a bottle of bleach in the trunk.Squirt it on the tires when you need traction. Works very well on ice but only lasts about 25 feet or so. Kitty litter works good too.

Before you start filling your diff or gearbox, heat the oil in the microwave. Warm oil flows much easier.

Rusty spots on chrome? Steel wool and wax. I wax the side and back windows too. Makes the water bead and runoff good.

Can't find that oil leak? Clean it up good with a degreaser and when it's dry dust it with corn starch. You'll see the oil tracks really well then. Baby powder works too.

Happy motoring

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Put a pantyhose over the top radiator spud and put the hose back on. When done pull the pantyhose out.

Also, to limit the corrosion in your cooling system, stop at the hardware store and pick up some zinc that they use on roofs to keep the moss off. Cut a strip, roll it up real tight and drop it in top rad hole. Zinc is a weak metal and the corrosion will attack it before anything else. They do this on the hulls of ships to keep them from rusting.

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Digital cameras are really handy. When I had to pull the intake off a 1983 Honda, I used different colored yarn to mark all the vacuum hoses. I'd take the red, put a piece on each end of a hose, then the blue, green , purple, yellow, white, etc. Take a pic and remove all the hoses with yarn on them and start over. When it was time to reassemble, I had good pics and all the hoses were marked with yarn.

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Take this a little further and salvage the magnets out of old harddrives and run a ring of them around the outside of your oil pan. Gets the iron before it goes through the pump.


You can get these type of magnets on ebay too.

ebay search

Now that's a tip I plan to use!

Here's one I just used and have used a few times,
use your/a digital camara to see places your big head can't get into.
I could get my hand behind the radio in the Mazda but could not find the hole for the antenna. I reached around with the digital camara, took a picture, recalled the pic, found the hole, and posted this message.
Now I can go to sleep.