How to Build a Automotive Smoke Machine (Vacuum Leak Detector)

hi Martin here today I want to show you guys how to build your own smoke machine I recently had a code on my Jeep Grand Cherokee a p0 455 and 8 for 22 indicating a small and large vacuum leak well I did the visual inspection and could not find it so the best way to find any type of vacuum leak exhaust leak engine leaks is apply smoke to it and it's going to show you where the leaks at so after doing a little research on YouTube I found this one here that one of the breeders out there built and I really like the way you know the ease of the build and the way it looks and everything and it does work really well and I call it my get smoking machine and I'll show you how to build this and all the products and tools that you'll need to get that done alright let's get started alright we're going to start by gluing these two halves together we got the PVC closet flange here this is a three or four inch and then we got the clean-out adapter four inch clean-out adapter here I'm applying the PVC glue this particular one just happens to be green in color as a matter which color you used alright next we got to make a few holes I'm gonna go in about just take this tape here we're gonna I'm gonna shoot for like one and a half inches and exactly 180 degrees from that one we'll put another one and you can use these ribs right here as your indicator for 180 degrees so that way you know you're straight across I'm using a quarter inch diameter drill bit or the quarter inch hardware that I'll be using next we need a torch wick this one I've kind of played around with you see if you burn marks on it and we've got to get it to the right diameter for the bottom of this hold a little cross from one side to the other next we need to get the wick to the correct width I'm just going to cut off the excess here there we go making sure that the wick is long enough to reach the bottom so it can soak up the oil you may want to make a mark here and here this way you'll know where the wire needs to start and stop on each end all right the next thing we've got to do is determine how long our resistance wire is I'm shooting for like somewhere between 2 and 2 point 5 ohms and this is gonna produce you know the amount of heat that we need to make that smoke now I've put a link down below like I've said before where you can get this material what I have here is my welding wire this is stainless steel and it's 30 thousandths of an inch which is right around 24 gauge all right so this is just what I'm gonna use because I got it laying around I got my multimeter here I got set up on ohms and I got one probe here and the vise with the wire tied around the probe and I'm just gonna determine here we go figure out how long we're gonna make this wire and as you go out further the ohms are gonna go up [Music] right there's two ohm's I'm in it probably about 24 inches of wire all right I'm gonna call that good right there 2.2 that's approximately 30 inches of wire now wrap the wire around now when you're wrapping this around it's not important to have like equal distance from one wrap to the next but try not to touch one wrap to the other wrap now as you can see I'm having a little trouble using up all my wire because I'm not using the resistance wire if you use actual resistance wire the length is going to be a lot shorter probably somewhere I'm gonna guess between 18 and 24 inches instead of my 30 inches that I got there take our quarter inch 20 Hardware here we're gonna get a couple raps on there all right just like that now we can place this down in here pushing the quarter-inch bolt through the hole that you made all right the next step I got this car charging adapter that you hook up to your battery comes with a fuse holder right here and then the like the cigarette lighter type port or charging port that we're going to just cut this off and put two ring terminals on I like this one it's 14 gauge you know nice heavy duty and it's five feet long I like that too I'll put a link down below in the description all right we'll start by cutting this off I'm just gonna leave this a little bit of length on there I just may use this for something else and this is totally optional here but I'm gonna go ahead and solder this and I got a small grommet here I'm just going to cut this in two and this is we're gonna use this to seal up the each side they're placing the wire on here it doesn't matter which side you put it on of course alright next we need to drill a couple holes in it one to let air in the other one of course to push the air out I'm just going to use these you know air compressor fittings right here these are very inexpensive and they work quite well instead of using let's say one of these were you're gonna hook your air compressor up and a barbed fitting on the other side it's just as well just get two of these alright and then we'll use a stepper bit to drill the whole width or also known as a uni bit alright making a couple marks again now right around one and a half inches 180 degrees from each other [Music] yes that plastic is so thick right there you can see how the hole really varies in size from one from the outside to the inside there we go all right you want to drill the hole just slightly smaller in the actual fitting and then the threads on the fitting themselves we'll cut the threads into the plastic right there all right get the other one drilled we're almost there all right once you've got the fittings on here now we're gonna do is attach I got some 3/8 vinyl hose slide that on there attach our air hose add some oil now all you got to use is just baby oil this is I just happen to have a lavender scent the garage here smells great right now but make sure that whip is nice and moistened you know put a little bit there on the bottom now we'll test it out real quick without the top on it 12 volt battery right here and we've got smoke now one of the last things we want to do is add this plug to the top of it just in case pressure where to build up in this system we want it to be able to blow a plug out just as a safety precaution this is a 3/4 by 9/16 by 1 inch plug okay ok what I've done here is I've disconnected my vacuum line this is leading back to the evap system here because that's the codes that I got indicate now just hook up that vacuum line to our get smoking machine got the air compressor turned down way low then hook our battery up you see we got smoke now you can see right there how the smoke is coming out of the back here oh I definitely got a problem right up here well I'll have to get that bumper skin off of here cuz right back here is the whole EVAP system and find out what's going on all right there you have it not too hard of a build very handy tool to have around and as you can see easily found where the leak was coming from next video is fixing that leak all right I want to thank you all for watching if you never subscribe to me before please hit that subscribe button right down there and a little bell symbol right next to it and that way you get notifications of my future uploads and I'm an Amazon affiliate and you'll find links down below where all of the tools and products that are used to build this and you can do all your amazon shopping through one of those links and that way you financially help out the channel and if you like this video please give me a thumbs up I always appreciate that it helps out support the channel thanks again for watching and we'll see you on the next one

Channel: martinbuilt

Views: 297,011

Rating: 4.9432254 out of 5

Keywords: How to Build a Leak Smoke Detector, how to make a smoke leak detector, vacuum leak, how to find vacuum leaks, exhaust leak, automotive laek detector, p0455, p0422, code, jeep grand cherokee, wj, How to Build a Automotive Smoke Machine, leak smoke machine, smoke, machine

Id: tixozqgSwN0

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 22 2020