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What are you not nostalgic for?
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Cars that would vapor lock when driving in the mountains.
As flatlander: I need some clarification. Why was this, why is it no longer something?
Vapor locking is an interplay between a mechanical vacuum based fuel pump and carburetors that causes the engine to get starved of gas and stall out. It’s made worse at high altitude and particularly when ascending rapidly like driving up a high altitude pass such as Wolf Creek. If you’ve even needed to pop your ears several times while driving you’ve been in a situation where it could have happened.
Back in the day, the fix when it happened was to stop the engine and wait for air pressure to equalize through the system, which generally took about 30 minutes. Of course, this was on the side of a narrow twisty mountain road and people would sometimes get impatient or not know what was going on and flood their engine in a panic.
It’s pretty rare now due to electric fuels pumps and fuel injection.
I work at a place that pumps several million pounds of liquid a day. As such, I know all about vapor locking. However, as a flatlander, I had no idea this was a thing. Thanks for the TIL.