Motors &- Motoring

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 260, 29 July 1932, Page 3

Motors &- Motoring

‘ can be’said about this from a coronei.- “A wise motorist always drives in the middle of the road!”

Because no one could prove that the sun set at a specified time, an English magistrate recently dismissed a case against a person for' having no lamps after lighting-up time.

ignition wires where they run near exhaust, or other engine pipings, rapidly become scorched, and eventually ’ will short-circuit at these scorchings and cause misfiring. .It is a good plan ■ to tape them at danger points with adhesive tape, afterward twice shellac varnishing the binding. j Hartlepool, a . town of more than 20,000 people, has not had a single fatal street accident during the past year. There .were only twenty accidents classified in ail, a. large proportion being due to the carelessness of pedal cyclists. This freedom from serious accidents is said to be largely the result of a system of. regular safety first lessons in the schools. Moreover, many of the school authorities are special constables, who have been instructed to take care of children and warn them of dangers. Proper education, it .will be seen, is a speedy method of benefiting modern traffic conditions. ; REDUCING FIRE RISK : Although ■ most drivers, are not as careful as they should be in the handling of petrol, motor-car fires are not very common. The wide adoption of a simple device recently invented in Great Britain should still further reduce the fire risk. This is a special safety valve intended to close the supply pipe from the tank to the car- ; burettor, and thus isolate the petrol In > the event of a fire beneath the bon- I net. * It consists of a valve for In- ! sertion in the supply pipe. The valve is spring loaded in such a way that the spring tends to close the .valve. The valve is kept open by a slip «f special metal designed to melt at a temperature a little above maximum , summer temperature. Should a fire ] occur the heat'would melt this metal, allowing the valve to close and thus I shutting off fuel.

GAS AS CAR FUEL Despite the predominance of petrol as a, fuel for internal combustion engines, intensive research is being con tinned in respect of substitutes for that product, states an Australian newspaper, and certain corporations in England have conducted successful experiments with ordinary town gas. During the war, when petrol was scarce in Britain, it was not uncommon to see a motor vehicle being driven on household gas, which was stored in a balloon-like container of flexible material carried on the roof of the car. Recently, some interesting tests were made by the Birmingham gas department with a four-cylinder engine, having an improved type of air-gas mixer; and more exhaustive trials were also made with a 7 h.p. four-cylinder unit, which was in turn driven with gas alone, without supercharging, with supercharging, and with a combination of gas and benzole, and also of gas and petrol. As a result of these experiments, the following conclusions were reached: “The thermal efficiency of high-speed internal combustion engines when supercharged is greater when town-gas is used, and that it is further increased -by carburetting the gas with benzole. The thermal efficiency of petrol is decreased by supercharging, but the maximum power developed with gas alone is lower than with petrol. The carbon'monoxide content of the exhaust gases is considerably less with gas than with petrol, and gas is more responsive to supercharging than petrol, the power being increased to a greater extent.”

Al 16-cyllnrler 1500 h.p. car of superstreamline shape has been completed in the U.S.A, by the racing driver (Harlan Fengler), and will shortl- be driven by him in an attack on the world land speed record. It will be the smallest car yet used in the record attempts-

(By

“SPARE WHEEL.')

- CYLINDER WEAR Due to Many Causes The owner of a car who finds that his cylinders wear out quicker than his tyres "may be forgiven for an inclination to revile the manufacturers, says an article in a recent issue of “The Motor?’ If he is a motorist of considerable experience he may think that the art of making cars has not kept pace with that of tyre production. As many owners know to their cost, we have gone through a period of rapid cylinder wear with popular makes of ear, which we hop' will never recur. We have been inundated with complaints referring to cars a few years old. Some there are who hold that oije reason Was the use of unsuitable castings which were unable to withstand the higher engine speeds now obtained, a point which, at any rate, we are assured has been remedied. Others lay the blame upon the carelessness of the user who does not appreciate that the modern engine is a piece of machinery worthy of more than ordinary care. We should attribute rapid cylinder wear to a number of causes rather than to any particular one. Here are a few points for consideration. Co-incident with this trouble is the employment of aluminium pistons, which, in turn; have enabled a greatly increased power output to be obtained, coupled with' higher engine speeds. Much of the increased wear of cylinders may be due to the use “of a softer piston metal (compared with cast iron), in which hard particles of abrasive material may become embedded, with a consequent lapping action upon the cylinder walls. Our engines have become smaller in size, for a given task, and cruising speeds have gone up: the amount of full-throttle running has thereby increased, so adding to the load on the pistons and raising the .forking temperatures. Again, stranglers have come into common use to give a rich starting mixture, the effect of which is to wash the cylinder walls before the oil circulates. ' ' Need for Research. Notwithstanding the disadvantages under which modern engines operate,

there is abundant evidence that, with careful use, such as, it is admitted, was not so essential in the-days of cast-iron pistons and low power outputs, very long, cylinder life can be obtained. It is important to remember that When two metal surfaces are in rubbing contact at- high speed, wear is bound to occur, and the only way to minimize that wear is tp separate the surfaces by a film of oil, Thus, the oil must be given time to circulate before these surfaces are moving over each other at any speed. One of the virtues of upper cylinder lubrication should be apparent in this respect, while air cleaners and oil strainers also seem to be desirable 'requirements in modern high-speed lightweight engines. It should also be mentioned that liners would provide harder bores of a uniform thickness less subject to distortion when heated.

Unfortunately, this is a subject in which there has been far too little research. Car design has progressed greatly in the past ten years, but not always in the direction of providing durability commensurate with the greater power output and higher speeds available which are placed in the bauds of those who will not trouble to treat their car as a thoroughbred rather than as a common hack. Considerable improvement has now' been effected. Given reasonable care in use, rapid cylinder wear should not appear in 1932 cars.

The latest, safety device for pedestrians consists of a circular piece of white enamelled leather patched on the back df.each shoe, just above the heel. It shows up clearly in the headlights. The closing down of the Automobile Club of America, the oldest motor club in the U.S.A., is announced from New York. The club was .formed in 1899 to promote motor sporting events. In 1920 resident members of the club alone totalled 1600, but the last three years has seen a tremendous fall off in membership.

THE TOLL SPECTRE Plimmerton Access On the ground that motorists are paying sufficient in taxation to give them a claim for reasonable and adequate roads and bridges without incurring tolls and local imposts, the Wellington Automobile Club is opposing the proposal to erect a toll bridge at Paremata. The club does not dispute that a bridge would be appreciated and used by travellers to Plimmerton, but the club contends, with some truth that taxation has been boosted up during the last five or six years to such an extent that the revival of tolls would be against tlie principles of highway finance. Every time the New Zealand motorist buys a gallon of petrol, the association points out, he pays nearly Bjd. towards the fund which he expects will ensure him modern roads. Every tire purchased yields another contribution, and the annual license fee is another source of revenue. Having furnished this, the motorist may expect that he is going to get his roads and bridges when and where they are justified. Abolish this taxation and road finance by tolls would have to be invoked, but the two systems do not seem very palatable in company. The revival of the toll system for the Paremata bridge may go no- further, but, once established, any new sourceof revenue dies hard. x The motor has been rather easy meat for taxation during the last few years, the association claims. The toll system dates from the forming of early roads in New Zealand under supervision of the armed constabulary. It goes back much further in older countries. Modern thought in the direction of highway finance is against tolls. The State Highway Commissioner of Washington, U.S.A., presented an exhaustive report on the relative merits of toll and free bridges in 1927. The cases of five bridges which were analysed showed that the average yearly cost of service to the public, including sinking fund and interest, was from 63 per cent, to 185 per cent, higher for the toll bridge. The actual expense of collecting the tolls ranged from 15. per cent, to 27 per cent, of the takings on toll bridges. If a toll is to be without evasion on a busy route its collection requires Hie ■ services' of at least two men. This wage factor goes on for a long time. The toll system has a lot of enemies in the United States. The American Association of State Highway Officials recently issued a rather terse comment on the toll system: “There is more water in the stock of some privatelyowned toll bridges than in the streams over which the bridges have been constructed.” The official organ of this association has published articles with such titles as “The Toll Bridge Menace/’ and “The Toll Bridge Octopus.” There has been a wide demand for the States to either continue buying out toll bridges or to erect free bridges. Legislation empowering the closing of toll bridges and gates was passed in Great Britain in 1930.

The principle of betterment is being increasingly recognised in the provision of reading, the association says. In Auckland the City Council has already established this principle, and has collected from property owners who have been advantaged by. reading. As the local authority sponsoring the Paremata bridge, the Hutt County'Council will have to satisfy motorists that it is prepared to pay a proportion of the cost. Motorists will not mind the' balance coming from the road fund which they have created. It has' not been forgotten that when the Main Highways Act was launched representatives of motoring bodies were consulted by Cabinet; Ministers atid it was made clear that the new system of taxation was to wipe out tolls for all time. The United States, the association concludes, is a poor example to quote in support of toll bridges. Apart from the agitation which is increasing the system, the parallel cannot be made with New Zealand. No American motorist pays 17 cents (B|d.) as tax on every gallon of fuel. In fact, the American motorist complains very bitterly when the total price of petrol'at the jump is as high as 17 cents. Altogether, motoring is very expensive in New Zealand in comparison with countries which produce cars. . STILL LAZIER MOTORING The American motorist .is always •looking for service—-anything which will save a little personal effort is sure of an eager welcome. Some genius has conceived the idea that to take petrol and oil to the motorist is only a logical development of this servicing craze, and has therefore designed a light tank wagon, fitteil with two petrol pumps and an oil cabinet. Several of these outfits, known as the “Gaserver,” are now in use. They tour the streets of cities and the main roads in the vicinity—calling at houses if requested to do so. On the side of the tank is painted the legend, - “Flag for Gas”— American for'“Stop Me and Buy Some.” A VETERAN BODY Among the cars at present owned by the Earl of Derby is a 30 h.p. limousine which must surely be unique, for its body is over 26 years old. As far back as 1905' a well-known firm of coachbuilders supplied this body to Lord Derby. Since then it has been transferred twice and is still giving great satisfaction, which speaks volumes for the quality of its construction. POWER FROM WASTE OIL It is not always realised what a wealth of power lies in the waste oil which accumulates at garages and service stations from sumps and gearboxes. Actually, this oil can be employed to provide power for lighting, driving machinery, and for battery charging. . The waste oil generating and charging sets manufactured by a well-known British firm, comprise a patent single-cylinder engine specially arranged for this forin of operation, and a direct current generator; They make it possible to generate light or charge batteries at remarkably Idw cost, so that the savings effected quickly pay for the plant.

The modern car is such a reliable and sturdy piece of mechanism that a a rule it will stand up unfalteringly against a degree of abuse which earlier models would soon have resented, yet it is no uncommon thing to hear an owner complaining of his particular model having this or that weakness. Some motorists are prone to think no technical advice is superior to the'r own practical knowledge, and accordingly look upon the directions in the car instruction book with a certain amount of disdain. But let us remember that nobody is in a better position than the manufacturer to assert what treatment his product should receive, and that it is presumptuous for the lay man to fly in the face of such advice.