This Day in History (1986): Car care expert reveals secrets of maintenance

From the April 2, 1986 edition of The Arabian Sun

Have you ever sat in your care early in the morning, desperately searching for reasons why nothing happens when you turn the key in the ignition?

Or panicked when hot, black smoke suddenly billows out from under your hood while you are driving alone on a deserted street?

If so, you're not alone, says automotive expert Ernesto Lanuza, who points out that most car owners can't distinguish a carburetor from a radiator.

Happy exceptions to this dismal rule are graduates of Lanuza's Adult Education Automotive Preventative Maintenance course. Not only are they able to distinguish between basic ar parts, but they can converse comfortably about rotating their tires and "troubleshooting" their cooling systems.

More important, these same graduates know how to monitor the systems that "drive" the automobile, so sudden developments can be pinpointed before they mushroom into serious problems.

The students learn to identify potential problems by conducting routine "checks" on water, oil, brake, and steering fluids, radiator belts, and tire rations. For example, the car owner learns to take note of a brake fluid decrease over a period of days and have it corrected before it results in a brake malfunction.

"There are actually a number of repairs and changes that people can do on their own, without the services of a mechanic," claims Lanuza. His students become adept at changing spark plugs; flushing the oil and changing the oil filter; adjusting, cleaning, and "bleeding" (removing a trap of fluid in the line) the brake system, and tightening batter connections.

Caption for top photo: Car maintenance expert Ernesto Lanuza demonstrates to his students how easy it is to "flush" a car's cooling system.

Also on this date

2020 - The total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 reaches 1 million

2015 - Four men steal items worth up to 200 million pounds from an underground safe deposit facility in London's Hatton Garden area in what has been called the "largest burglar in English legal history"

2006 - Over 60 tornadoes break out in the U.S.; Tennessee is the hardest hit with 29 people killed

1992 - Mafia boss John Gotti is convicted of murder and racketeering, later being sentenced to life in prison

1991 - Rita Johnston becomes the first female Premier of a Canadian province in British Columbia

1986 - Alabama governor George Wallace, best known for the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door," announces he will not seek a fifth term and retire from public life in January 1987

1979 - A soviet bio-warfare laboratory at Sverdlovsk accidentally releases airborne anthrax spores, killing 66 plus a number of cattle

1973 - The LexisNexis computerized legal research service is launched

1972 - Actor Charlie Chaplin returns to the U.S. after being chased into exile during the Red Scare in the early 1950s

1956 - "As the World Turns" and "The Edge of Night" premiere on CBS

1930 - After the mysterious death of Empress Zewditu, Haile Selassie is proclaimed emperor of Ethiopia

1917 - U.S. president Woodrow Wilson asks Congress for a declaration of war on Germany

1912 - The RMS "Titantic" begins sea trials

1902 - The "Electric Theater," the first full-time movie theater in the U.S., opens in Los Angeles

1800 - Ludwig van Beethoven leads the premier of his First Symphony in Vienna

1513 - Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon comes ashore on what is now the U.S. state of Florida

Caption of the top image: Car maintenance expert Ernesto Lanuza demonstrates to his students how easy it is to "flush" a car's cooling system. (NSC)