Motors and Motoring

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 32, 1 November 1929, Page 16

Motors and Motoring

(By

“SPARE WHEEL.”)

MEETING LIVE STOCK

WHAT A MOTORIST SHOULD DO' In country driving, very frequently one conics across droves of cattle or other stock. I have heard the opinion expressed by an irascible town driver (writes a contributor to the "Autocar”) that farmers should not be allowed to move stock on the road in the day-time.

I can only suggest that.catt.le are worse to meet at night;. Besides, they have as much right to the road as anyone else. The habitual country driver soon becomes used' to making his way through a drove on the road; one or two tips on the subject may be of assistance in smoothing the path of town motorists who find this problem annoying. . In the first place, on meeting a flock, drove, or herd, much the best plan is to stop at the roadside and allow the drover- to iiirge his charges past your car. If you attempt'to drive through an oncoming bunch of animals, it is ten chances to one' that some of them will break' back the way they have come, causing endless trouble to the drover and holding up one’s car still longer. Overtaking is a different matter. The first obvious move is to drop into a-low gear, for several stops may be necessary. The next process is to insinuate the car past the rearmost animals on one side of the road. Which side to take does 'not usually matter much, for the whole road is naturally blocked to other traffic. By a series of discreet and wellmodulated hoots, toots, or other warning noises, it is necessary to apprise the persons in charge of your approach, ijand to make .the most of each opening that presents itself. Do not, however, fall into the error of getting into the middle of'the animals, or trouble is liable to ensue. A little patience will very soon establish a mass movement towards the side of the road away from you, and .an opportunity to slip through will be offered. Cattle are usually quite easy to pass; horses require special care; while sheep and pigs can, of course, never be depeuded upon to do anything rationally. Pigs, the. reverse of sheep, are naturally averse to anything in the nature of mass movements, being distinctly individualistic. Luckily, “porkers” arc, perhaps, the rarest class of stock one meets. The driver' of a car must stop if whoever is in charge of the stock requests it. NIGHT MOTORING WHEN ALL SEEMS DIFFERENT. Motoring has become a habit with most of us. To say the least, it is a very useful way of getting about quickly with a minimum of effort. Perhaps one spins about the countryside paying, i.o particular attention to anything. Fields and trees look alike —well, they , just look like ordinary fields and trees; it is pleasant to have the sun shining, and so on, but there nitty not always be time to notice much detail. But at night all is different. There is mystery and magic in motoring when the day is done and night has c-st her maul ■' over the land. You feel somewhat of a poacher; everything is so quiet and strtinge, so black. The trees appear suddenly, huge, shapeless objects, stretching out gaunt anus as though attempting ro lay hold of you; then just as suddenly they have melted away into the dark background of which they form part. Sudden twists in the road that you had never suspected throw great shadows on the starlit grass. The hedges are so fantistie, a likely ambush for strange, things.

A pair of glowing, -grecu eyes may peer at you; they belong to uo pursuing phantom, but to a sheep or to a stray cat. You may come upon a rabbi. in the middle of the road, and. blinded by the lietid lights, it will dash frantically along in front as sonic frightened spirit, zig-zagging the white road till it finally darts into the friendly shade at the side. Everything is so utterly silent ; even the purr of the engine is subdued, and you feel as if you were tile only moving tiling on the whole of the vast mysterious landscape. A bright flood of light suddenly breaks across the path; every detail stands out in weird silhouette. On it comes, sweeping the shadows before it; yon are plunged into its brilliance. The ear passes and leaves you in the night again, alone. Like sparks from an unseen fire, mollis Hit before the screen, then vanish into (he darkness, perhaps to be Io nd later half buried between the radiator tubes. _ Hills are tremendous shapes, kindly "uardians of the sleeping hamlets in the valleys. You look half-expeetantly for fairies, you might so easily surprise them dancing in the deserted hollows. ’Then, startled by the Hash of vour lights, they would scurry away, vanisliing on that dim line where moor meets skyThe solitude is-tilive. with things flint make no .ouml. But at: the first hint of morning the. spell is broken, and the frees and hedges shrink back to their familiar siiapes.

You must wake and call me early, Call me early, mother dear; Call me early, call me often, Call me so I’ll surely hear; Please be sure and call me, mother, Call me while it still is dark. I am driving to the city, and 1 Want a place to park!

GRAVEL ROADS

THE MOTOR-CYCLIST’S DEATH This week a motor-cyclist was killed in an accident directly attributable to the dangerous state of a gravel road in the Manawutu. There was ample evidence at the inquest that the machine and other vehicles in the vicinity were travelling at a pace that could

not be called excessive, yet such was the state of the road that when the rider was attempting to cross from one rut to another in order to take the proper side of the road after passing a slowly-moving car the machine .skidded and he was thrown under the wheels of the car. There was evidence to show that the ruts were six

inches deep, and the road was described as dangerous for all traffic. Accidents have been caused by roads in this state before, but it is not often that there is very weighty evidence of the victim’s blamelessness—an excessive speed is often presumed when someone is found dead on treacherous roads such as this.

Although the design of the machine and the skill of the rider are important. motor-cyclists who have had experience of the gravel (or better named “shingle”) road that, has been allowed to “go to pieces” know that even a dirt track rider would feel insecure on such a surface. The dirt track racing demonstrates how stable a twowheeled vehicle can be on a loose surface provided that surface is reasonably even, but the dirt track is never allowed to wear into ruts, and many roads in this district are. When gravel roads were advocated as cheap and comfortable highways the importance of frequent grading was stressed. The grader is the handmaiden of the gravel road, and without the former the latter ceases to be a road. The Main Highways Board realise this, as was shown by-their pointing out before Easter to those in control of roads the necessity of frequent attention to roads such as the ones under discussion.

However, county councils and engineers seem to begrudge the money required to keep the roads safe, but a fatality such as the one near Foxton on Labour Day may serve to bring the matter more to their. attention. Even drivers of motor-ears complain of the difficulty of keeping their vehicles on the road in the Foxton district.—“ Big Twin.”

BALANCED SUSPENSION

ONE SPRING FOR ALL FOUR WHEELS Excellent as car suspension is today, there is still a good deal of compromise, and finality lias not yet been reached. Motorists still await a suspension that is uniformly good bo.th at high and low speeds and over undulating wavy surfaces or rough and irregularly pot-holed roads. Probably the ordinary type of springing, with four springs of the cambered half-elliptic or cantilever type, in conjunction with friction damping, has in the best examples been carried almost as far as it can be developed, and new ideas must be followed If marked improvement is to be made. The suspension designed by a Bradford engineer, Mr., 11. Greaves, is therefore, worthy of consideration, especially as the results of a demonstration are distinctly good. The following description of the new system appears in the “Autocar”:—

“In the Greaves system the arrangement of two springs per axle is dispensed with, and, instead of the pack of laininated springs, a single, leaf or blade is substituted, this being either flat or having a slightly inverted camber, with'the consequence that the distance between the dumb-iron and shackle centres tends to shorten as the load increases.

“This shortening of the spring centres causes the front and rear shackles to swing away from each other, and' the movement is converted into a pull on a spring-balancing gear located at the centre of the chassis. To secure

this effect there are two connecting links from the front shackles, and these are pivoted to a cross-bar. Similarly, two other links connect the rear shackles to a second cross-bar. Bearing against this second cross-bar is a half-elliptic spring, to the centre of which the pull, from the front crossbar is applied through an adjustable connection having limited universal movement.

“Small variations of load and lesser impacts are absorbed in the single blade springs, but any appreciable deflectiofi of one axle is transmitted through the whole system. Moreover, if one wheel rises, the use of pivoted connections throughout allows the pull on the one shackle concerned to be balanced out through all the other shackles, and thus there is no tendency for any of the wheels to leave the ground as a result of one of them receiving a violent upthrow. “So far. as one could tell by driving a. car equipped with this suspension (and without shock abgorbers), the designer’s claims were well substantiated. On ordinary roads the springing was good, and on exceptionally rough tracks it was possible to drive unreasonably fast without suffering excessive bounce and without, one would judge, the wheels leaving the ground appreciably. As a matter of fact, only the use of accurate recording instruments would prove the claims made as against a normal suspension, but the results certainly indicated that a full and scientific investigation was ■ worth undertaking. ; ... f; .... “The balancing of the movement of one axle against the other appears to allow for a much greater range of wheel movement without deflecting the chassis or without causing frame distortion, while the elimination of the unsprung weight of four half-elliptic springs is a point to be commended, ■t’ossibly-the use of a coil spring might be investigated in lieu of the central transverse laminated spring as a further means of weight reduction.”

THE MOTOR INDUSTRY

A ROMANCE LIKE “JACK AND THE BEANSTALK.” The automotive industry is the world’s finest business romance. There is nothing comparable to it. It makes the fairy story of “Jack and the Beanstalk” a commonplace, and Aladdin’s lamp a stupid invention of Oriental fancy. No other industry has had so short a period of adolescence. And the amazing thing is that, although it has penetrated the four corners of the globe, it has only “warmed up” for the brilliant industrial marathon ahead. In the business world the automobile has practically revolutionised methods of merchandising. Its flexibility 'enables the salesman to cover a larger territory and work it more intensively. With lightning speed he spins over smooth pavement, making more points in a day than he could formerly in a week..

One man to-day does the work that formerly required three or four, and does it faster and better. _ This is only one of a thousand ways in which the automobile is transforming business by building a finer efficiency. Its challenge to-day to the businessman is, “Use me or shut up shop.”

VENTILATION

AMERICA’S LATEST METHOD. The trend of automobile design of recent years has been toward the closed model, there now being in use more of this kind than of open models. The problem of ventilating closed cars has been given a great deal of attention by designers, due to the fact that a few cases of death by monoxide gas poisoning have occurred because of lack of proper ventilation. Besides this, it is a well-known fact that the air within a closed car during the winter months is not as fresh as it might be. A promising rear window ventilator has been invented recently in U.S.A., which consists of a metal frame mounted in the rear of automobile bodies to take the place of the fixed window glass which is ordinarily used. In this metal frame there are two plates of glass, the upper one being supported by a metal flange which extends across the top and sides, and the lower one being supported by metal flanges on each side. These two are adjustable very much in the same manner as are ordinary windscreens. Adjustment is effected means of a rod which is raised or lowered to tilt the glass plates outward, or to close them. Use of this deylce allows perfect ven- • tllation of the car without creating draughts, as would be the case should the front windscreen or the side glasses be opened.

STARTING FROM COLD

DIFFICULTY WITH GEARS. It is not an uncommon thing for car drivers to experience difficulty in engaging gear when starting up first thing in the morning, especially when the weather is cold. The difficulty is often due to clutch drag as the result of suction between the cork inserts and the driving discs, assisted by the viscosity of the oil. It will in all probability be cured by pushing the clutch right out several times before starting the engine. If Ithat procedure is followed it will probably be found that the engagement of first gear will be a simple matter. Alternatively, with the engine running, the clutch pedal should be held out whilst the accelerator is sharply tapped, thus speeding the engine up intermittently to break . the oil film. This will assist in freeing the clutch driven plates from the driving plates.

A newcomer amongst the world’s remarkable machines is one which reproduces the conditions of every sort of road. The machine, at the will; of the controller, will imitate a wet road, a rough road, or a road covered with dust. The main object of this machine is to concentrate on the causes of tire wear in a few days, which by the ordinary road method would require driving thousands of miles, taking months.

ELECTRICAL DEFECTS

EASY TO EXPECT THE WORST. Inattention to simple details connected with the electrical equipment of a car will often cause considerable inconvenience to the driver, to say nothing of the cost occasioned by such negligence. It is quite easy to blame the dynamo for the lack of output, when the instrument itself is in perfect order. Sometimes one will continue to exhaust the batteries, which are not receiving any charge from the dynamo, simply owing to' the failure of a lead carrying the current tolhe switchboard. When a defect of this kind arises, the most natural tendency, is to rush the car off to the garage or to a service station where electrical repairs are carried out, but as a matter of' fact it is quite a simple matter to trace out the various' wires to ascertain whether they are in good condition and thus perhaps discover the cause of the trouble before putting the car in.dock for so simple a reason. Sometimes a small length of insulation tape wound round a cable that has become chafed through, will save putting the car temporarily out of service, and therefore it is desirable to make sure that a simple repair cannot be carried out in the home garage, before having to interview the staff of the service depot abo.ut details that could be put right in a few minutes by one’s own efforts.

CARBON AND DETONATION

In addition to such troubles as sticking piston rings, faulty valve operation, difficulty in starting, spark plug failure, etc., carbon deposit is one of the chief causes of detonation. Although detonation, or “pinking” is seldom experienced under average conditions with good quality, properly constituted fuel, it not infrequently occurs in hill dimming, and during attempted, rapid acceleration from slow speeds on top gear. The presence of carbon, by restricting the clearance space in the combustion chamber, and thereby increasing the compression pressure and consequent temperature, may promote or accentuate detonation in engines which would otherwise rarely exhibit any inclination towards this wasteful and undesirable phenomenon. Even when “pinking” does not occur, overheating and loss of power may be the direct outcome of abnormal deposit formations.

Herbert Mundin’s popularity as a golfer is rapidly spreading throughout New Zealand, and. this most amusing comedian who causes shrieks of laughter in “The Desert Song” will have more than his hands full if he accepts all the challenges now pouring in on him. A gentleman writing from Wanganui says that all is prepared and that a local band will probably attend at the links to “play off” the champion when he leaves the ground.