A Field Guide to Automotive Technology

by Ed Sobey

Open the hood of your car and you’ll find a confusing mishmash of wires, tubes, and mechanical devices. What are all of those things? Written for mechanical novices who may not know their catalytic converters from their universal joints, A Field Guide to Automotive Technology will help them gain a basic understanding of how their automobiles function. How does an airbag know when to deploy? What is rack and pinion steering? And where exactly does a dipstick dip? Even seasoned gearheads will learn from this guide as it traces the history and development of mechanisms they may take for granted.  A Field Guide to Automotive Technology has more than 130 entries, each with a clear photo to make recognition easy. Devices are grouped according to their “habitats”—under the hood, inside the car, and more—to help the reader identify the technology in question. Once the “species” is discovered, the entry will tell you its “behavior”—what it does—and how it works, in detail. This guide also includes sidebars on related technical issues, such as how to mix up a batch of homemade windshield wiper fluid. It even discusses other vehicles found on our nation’s highways—buses, motorcycles, bicycles, and more—as well as a few off-road vehicles.

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Ed is curious - he wants to see the world and understand how it works. So he travels (a lot) and takes things apart. And, he enjoys putting things together from building robots to writing books.

As a math and physics major, Ed likes numbers. He's traveled to 61 countries on all 7 continents. He has directed 5 museums (including the National Inventors Hall of Fame and founding the National Toy Hall of Fame) and written more than two dozen books.

He holds a Ph.D. in oceanography and has participated in 20 some expeditions, including doing research on sea ice in Antarctica. With his wife, he has sailed across the Pacific Ocean and has done a circumnavigation teaching oceanography for Semester at Sea. Ed is a Fellow Emeritus in The Explorers Club.

An avid outdoors person, Ed runs, bikes, swims, kayaks, and SCUBA dives. Along the way he searches for the unusual gizmo to take apart - or at least figure out how it works.

Reviews

[Azmi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always see this book as a child's read. Good introduction to parts of a car. Not overly complicated and very easy to understand. It's amazing how the author managed to convey a good understanding of technical basics without the help from a diagram.