Worried

A ripple for every moment

Scattered thoughts, broken words. Nothing said, nothing heard. Troubled water in disbelief; finds no direction, finds no relief. Nervous and afraid, quivering thoughts. Trapped on a leaf, lost and distraught. Flurries of confusion and flurries of blurry; from a storm of conscience, a storm of worry.

Journal Tags

This journal entry has been tagged with:

• Windshield Wiper Fluid
• Wipers
• Wiper Fluid
• Experiment
• Car
• Chemistry
• Frozen
• Ice

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About a week ago the windshield wiper fluid in my car froze. I figured this out the hard way on the freeway with snow and slush flying everywere on the freeway. When I got home, I had a project and some basic chemistry to remember.

First I took a gallon of windshield wiper fluid into the house. I filled up a bucket of hot water and placed the wiper fluid container in it to warm it up. In the meantime I checked the tank in my car. It was about 1/2 full and frozen solid. I took my warmed up wiper fluid (which contained methyl alcohol). The density of methyl alcohol is 0.79 which is less than water. This property determines whether or not something sinks or swims in water. Methyl alcohol is less dense than water, so it will swim / float on the top of water. Fans of happy hour would know that alcohol floats on top of the mix, which is why it is commonly added at the bottom of the drink first.

I poured about half of the warm wiper fluid on top of the block of fluid in my tank. Seeing that it would not mix very well on the top, I shook/pushed my car for about 5 minutes. At this point I turned my car on and tried the wiper fluid. Viola! Wiper fluid hit my windshield. I continued spraying the wiper fluid until half the tank was empty. I then took the remaining warm wiper fluid and poured it in the tank. I gave it one more good shake and ran the fluid through the pump one last time. Success!

I highly recommend checking windshield wiper fluid before Winter begins. I didn't check mine and I ended up with quite a headache on a treacherous ride home. Better safe than sorry. And if you are sorry, then you can try repeating this little experiment.

This may not be the most intriguing post, but I think it is helpful.

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