I read an Auto Express article many years ago about cooking food on a car engine. Foil wrapped parcels of "suitable" food were placed around the engines of various cars and cooked through with varying degrees of success as the cars made their way through daily traffic (jams).
I remember the Rover SD1 sent a wobbly pensioner into a dreamlike state on a South London zebra crossing as the smell of "proper" fried bacon wafted through the radiator grill. Other results varied from the indifferent to the downright disgusting - the perfect fried or scrambled egg has yet to be produced on a car engine (or anywhere near a plane).
Anyone got any similar anecdotes of using a car engine for secondary functions such as cooking? Is it possible to boil water for a cuppa a-la- Ivor the Engine ??
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Many many years ago my grandfather ran a small garage in the Derbyshire Peak District and also had a small fleet of lorries alongside as a haulage business (and snowploughing in winter).
He fitted all the vehicles with a metal box atop the exhaust manifold. The box had a hinged lid and a clip to fix it shut. Drivers could use it to cook and keep warm their food and drink - very useful when doing a night's ploughing during a hard winter...
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I think you'll find our cousins in that ex-penal colony somewhere to the south of Madagascar have perfected this, by attaching a billy to a carrier such that it's directly in the exhaust gas flow (just beyond the tail-pipe).
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I don't know if it's true, but I do hope it is, that in the days when crooked car dealers used to put minced steak in gearboxes and back axles to keep them quiet during a test drive (along with fine sawdust in engine oil, used in America to mask big-end and main bearing noise for a short time) the meat would start to emit a pleasant odour of shepherd's pie for a short time on the highway before everything ended in steam and curses.
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The engine is only at about 80-95 deg C, whereas most cooking needs about 180 deg C. It would probably give you food poisoning.
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The engine is only at about 80-95 deg C whereas most cooking needs about 180 deg C. It would probably give you food poisoning.
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I'd have to disagree, if you trust your Butcher...
Heston Blumen'eck and others cook beef in a plastic bag in a hot water bath at 55 degrees C. It's aparently the lowest temperature at which the collagen breaks down.
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The engine is only at about 80-95 deg C whereas most cooking needs about 180 deg C. It would probably give you food poisoning.
That's the coolant temperature. The exhaust manifold gets much hotter than that - almost red hot, I think. You could certainly boil water on it if you had a suitable way of conducting the heat. Wrapping a pasty in foil and wedging it on top of the manifold was an old farmer's trick. There was an article in Practical Classics a few years ago about someone who always packed his lunch on the manifold before setting off on a journey - he had cooking mileages down to a T.
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Lud sawdust in a backaxle dont work nor does tights
gearbox oil in engines only works if you dont rev it under the hammer
never heard of steak being used
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Ive done this quite a few times in my youth on the farms, ploughing (as mentioned) is especially good for this as the manifold gets upto "cherry-red" heat and stays there for a long time, another useful temperature is wood sawing! - Hugh Fearlesslyeatsitall regularly used this method with road-kill victims in his series "a cook on the wild-side", you can also down-load manifold recipies and cookbooks from the net, for shortish journeys though, may I recommend the Fish!
Billy
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Maybe modern car's manifolds dont get as hot, I have been on long runs, and tested my engine and manifold and found them to be about 85 and 111 respectively (with one of these cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1601...8 ). I was quite disappointed. I love the idea of it though.
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Maybe modern car's manifolds dont get as hot I have been on long runs and tested my engine and manifold and found them to be about 85 and 111 respectively (with one of these cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1601...8 ). I was quite disappointed. I love the idea of it though.
Whatever you measured the temp with was wrong. The manifold gets a lot hotter than 111 degrees!
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" lunch will be served in approximately 15 miles"
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never heard of steak being used
Old American trick they say, like sawdust in engine oil. Lasts five miles if the punter's a wally.
What I think is funny is these people saying an engine doesn't run really hot, when a clapped gearbox full of meat is certainly going to overheat in a big way sooner of later.
Sooner in fact.
Edited by Lud on 20/12/2007 at 21:01
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well, does anyone know the temperature at which petrol spontaneously ignites? The fire brigade and the insurance assesor's report concluded that the fire in my MK1 Granada 3.0 V6 was caused by fuel leaking from the rubber pipe to the carbs and pooling on the exhaust manifold and then igniting. The car was not being driven hard having my brand new #1 son in it on his first visit to his grandparents house.
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Auto ignition temperature of Octane is 206°C - so I'd have though petrol would go at somewhere around 200°C.
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RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
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Strictly speaking (Pedant mode on) what happened to your pooled petrol was not spontaneous igniton as defined -
"The bursting into flame of a mass of material as a result of chemical reactions within the substance, without the addition of heat from an external source. Oily rags and damp hay, for example, are subject to spontaneous combustion"
That said, I am sure that petrol vapour can ignite, given a source of ignition, at very low temperatures. An exhaust manifold would certainly be hot enough to make a good start.
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Petrol does not combust spontaneously,it requires a source of ignition. A temperature of around 250C will set it off,a manifold could reach 400C,so entirely possible.
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Though I never tried to do an egg poach on an engine, I often do warm up my burgers (already prepared at home) by keeping on top of bonnet in a foil.
It does server the purpose.
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`Petrol does not combust spontaneously,it requires a source of ignition.`
Back in 67, I pulled into an attendant type petrol station on my Triumph tiger.
In a hurry, I took the cap off the tank and stayed seated on the bike. The attendant promptly overfilled and petrol cascaded down the tank sides and over the very hot engine. A cloud of fumes enveloped my upper body along with a loud hissing sound.
Never did that again ;)
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caused by fuel leaking from the rubber pipe to the carbs and pooling on the exhaust manifold
Didn't you smell this as you were driving along?
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norm
The Essex fires were caused by petrol building up in the V; fumes penetrating the distributor and being ignited by the sparks across the contacts.
A Scimitar speciality too; I was following one on the M23 one night when it blew. By the time I'd reversed back, it was burning from end to end.
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"thats life" was a programme that used to be on in the 70's they had an article about people who used the exaust manifolds to cook food , and i seem to remember an egg being fried on the bonnet of a taxi cab in 1976 when we had a severe drought and a very hot summer
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Can't say i've cooked on an engine but often when offroading in the landie i've warmed pasties wrapped in foil on top of the engine.
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Can't say I've cooked on an engine, but I have to admit to cooking a couple of engines...
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Maybe the new Japanese Diesels will have a tray fitted to the manifold, for busy folk, they could buy thier (whale meat) fuel / dinner by the Kilo? cook it on the tray on the way to work, and the oil could drain via a tube straight into the fuel system! - typical scenario when pulling up at the pumps could be "30 litres in the back and 2kilos in the front please" (and a spare kilo in a mini-fridge in the boot for emergencys)
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Talking about American diesels and mobile liposuction.... " I drove to from New York to Ohio and lost 6 stone"
Edited by oilrag on 22/12/2007 at 10:13
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How about cooking INSIDE the car?
I remember an advert I read in a car magazine on a school trip to Germany 25 years ago for "Dr Schwalms Auto Wuerstchen". There was a long metal probe attached to a cigar lighter plug and a promotional jar of frankfurters. The idea was to take your German sausage, impale it on the prong and plug it in to heat up your Wurst during your journey. Nice piping hot sausage to chomp while stuck in a traffic jam, just the job.
Can't find it on the Net; it must have disappeared without a trace, either on H & S grounds (German DIN tests being what they are: no sausage prong, no MOT sticker) or maybe the things routinely failed after a dozen chipolatas.
Whatever happened to those in-car drinks kettles/baby milk warmers? 1000 miles' driving to get anywhere near warm IIRC...
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In my readings about the first Gulf war, it was said that the American battle tank crews were most impressed that the British Challenger battle tank had a food & drink heater fully designed and built in to the engine cooling system. Even the Abrams crews had to eat cold M.R.E.'s. { Meals Ready to Eat.} I understand that the British Army still runs on tea.
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That was the beauty of the old steam engined wagons of the bygone era, you could just tap the boiler to make a nice hot brew - luvly!
Billy
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talking of cooking and vehicles during ww2 the germans used to call the sherman tanks "tommy cookers" cause they had petrol engines instead of diesel , they were also affectionately called " ronsons" too cause they lit first time !!!
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