JAMMED STARTER TROUBLE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 257, 28 July 1939, Page 13

JAMMED STARTER TROUBLE

How To Overcome It The jammed starter Is a trouble which, in most instances, can be overcome by the driver, providing he knows how to go about it. Quite frequently motorists require road service for a trouble which they describe as “gears jammed,'' although in nearly every instance it has turned out to be a jammed starter. When there is doubt on this question, de-elutch and try to move the gear handle. If it moves, then it must be starter trouble. In any case, gears do not stick as a rule when an engine is being started. When a starter is jammed, no attempt to release it should be made with the starting handle. The reason for this is that a backward movement is needed to release it. The handle can only move the engine forward, and any forward movement will only serve to jam the starter more tightly.

The best thing to do is to put the car in top gear and rock it backwards and forwards, putting more weight on the backward movement. The engine should be switched off. of course. If this fails to release the starter, the only other course open is to slacken the bolts holding the starter to the engine and repeat the process of rocking the car with the gear lever in top. If this does not correct the trouble, then expert assistance should be called.

IMPROVED SPARK PLUG GAUGE

Better than the conventional type of spark plug point-setting gauge, which usually is a piece of Hat metal, is a piece of wire of the same thickness. When a plug has been in service for some time, a crater will have been burned into the central electrode, opposite to the ground electrode. It is then almost impossible to obtain an accurate setting with a piece of flat metal, but the wire will gauge the gap accurately.

AGAINST WHITE GLOVES After nine discussions by the Paris Municipal Council the question of white gloves for Paris traffic policemen has been Anally decided. Twentythree voices were raised in surprise that what had been found necessary in every other capital and country of the world and in certain French provinces, should be considered unnecessary for Paris, but -19 voices, including that of the Prefect of Police, maintained that the traflic circulation and control in the capital was perfect, and that therefore this economy in the matter of white gloves could be safely made.