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Remember seeing that the VW Beetle went on for years in Mexico, especially Mexico City. Considering the climate, how does an air cooled car like the Beetle keep from overheating in the heavy traffic of Mexico City?
same way a liquid cooled engine does, an engine driven fan that forces air across the cylinders. it also has a thermostatically controlled flap that controls the amount of air going across the cooling fins.
It also had some air "piping" hoses that distributed air around the engine. Remove them and the engine would overheat and seize up. Ask my son..........LOL
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Whether in Mexico or the northern USA, they do run hot enough in the engine compartment that hoses and wiring suffer and have to be checked/replaced more often than on water cooled engines. It may still take 10+ years though, before the deterioration is bad enough to be a problem. I had a 1972 Squareback, in the late 80s, and it needed a lot of wiring and hose (Fuel line) replacement. Cracked fuel lines led to a lot of car fires on those old VWs.
The fan did such a good job that in the winter, the so called interior heating system was totally ineffective. Porsche 911 engines were air cooled from 65 to 98 with an auxiliary oil cooler[with tank] that opened at 180 degrees. The engine had almost 12 quarts of oil.
well the beauty of air cooled engines is that as long as the coolng fins are kept clean, and the cooling tins around the engine are kept in good shape, its hard to overheat those engines, in fact it is hard to heat them up period.
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