The New Pulley

Aug 10, 2024

It is time for the new puzzler. This puzzler is automotive in nature. 

Here we go.

This involves one of our mechanics, Crusty. We talk about him a lot. 

A long time ago Crusty is at the end of his workday, and he's over in the parking lot with his truck. He had a '55 Chevy. And he's trying to pry off the pulley for the generator.

And I said to him, "What are you doing?" 

He says, "I'm sick and tired of having a dead battery all the time. This generator doesn't turn fast enough, and as a result, it doesn't charge the battery at low speed, which is all I do. I drive around town. I've got the headlights on, the radio, the heated seat, CD player. Generator doesn't produce enough electricity. The battery gets weaker and weaker, until one morning I come out and the battery is dead. It happens every couple of weeks in the winter and I'm sick of it. So I'm gonna replace it with a pulley that's half the size, so that when this thing isn't running at idle speed or around town, it will charge my battery. What do you think?"

So I say, "Go for it." You know, it isn't my truck. And I wanna see what happens. 

So, he does it. 

Then, about a week later, he is forced to take a little trip on the highway. He has to visit his mother. So, he gets on the highway. 

On the way back, something happens that he and I should have been able to predict as a consequence of this new pulley he installed. 

And that is today's puzzler. What happened to Crusty and his truck on the way back as a consequence of the new pully in his generator. 

Good luck.
 

Answer: 

So, what happened to Crusty and his truck on the way back as a consequence of the new pully in his generator?

Here is the answer. 

So, what he did was okay, if he was just going to drive around town. Because the new pully made the generator run faster, the generator, around town, thought the truck was going about 50 miles an hour. So it worked to charge the battery. 

But once he took it on the highway, and he was actually going 50 miles an hour, the generator thought he was going 100 miles an hour. 

So due to this, the pulley was going around so fast that the commutator, which is that part of the generator with all the little slits of copper that send the electricity through the brushes and ultimately, to the battery, flies apart from centrifugal force.

The generator self destructs. He came back with this box of melted mush.

And that's what happened. 


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