MOTORING AND MOTORISTS

Evening Star, Issue 18051, 19 August 1922, Page 8

MOTORING AND MOTORISTS

[By Radutob.] Brief account* of holiday trips, roads, and places of interest are invited for this column. Let not your headlights shine upon the other driver. H.J.M.R., Morningtom—Thanks for cutting. It is very interesting. HINTS AND TIPS. —Corrosion on Battery Terminals.— Corrosion on battery terminals will eventually necessitate the installation of new terminal connections. In order to prevent the trouble and expense, it is cheaper and easier to stop the corrosion before it has gone far enough to do any_ harm. The first step is to bathe the terminals in strong ammonia water in order to neutralise the acid upon them. After that is done, the terminals should be rinsed in clear water, and then smeared with vaseline. If vaseline is applied from time to time little or no corrosion will occur. —Tost the Pedal.— There is nothing more painful to the motor cyclist than the jar that results when your foot, instead of meeting tho stout resistance of the engine compression, suddenly lunges down and finishes up with a crash at the bottom of the stroke. How many riders have experienced this with kick-start pedals?_ Moral: Test the pedal to make sure it is “biting” before putting your weight on it. All and sundry loathe saddle soreness and backache. Considerable relief may be obtained' by fixing a soft cloth cover to a saddle and wearing a broad webbing belt round the waist. The latter is, an excellent preventative of backache. —Tyre Changing.— When you have the misfortune to have to change a tyre, be sure that vou put the rim back on the wheel properly. Do not tighten down each lug to its full extent before proceeding to the next. Instead, go nil round the. rim, turning down each nut a few revolutions, keeping this procedure up until all the nut,-; are down snugly. If you tighten one lug while tho others are loose, you are likely to bend the i:m out of shape, to say nothing of the top-sided way the lyre will be mounted. Also a vim that is unevenly held down around its circumference is likely to squeak or work loose. PISTON SLAP. -The “slap” caused by cold aluminium pistons is another noise that need not worry the owner-driver greatly. By reason of the fact that, pistons made of this metal have to bo made a loess fit in (he, cylinder in order to allow for expansion as they gel warm, they are more or Ices certain to rattle a ! little as soon as

the engine is started up. Sometimes this noise takes the form of well-defined taps; on other cars it is a continuous rumble. So long as it is not present after the engine has got hot, however, there is_ no need to .worry about it; and' those critics who complain that cars fitted with aluminium pistons are objectionable are hardly fair in their remarks. CLEANING THE MOTOR. Keeping the motor clean will go_ a long way towards the prevention of ignition trouble. The gear case should be clcancu thoroughly with steam to eliminate grinding noises and wear of the gears. Evciy car owner should take care to soo that the engine drip-pan is always dosed tightly, so that dirt and mud cannot accumulate and grease cannot get on the ignition wiring and cables. Wien they become soaked with oil and water they short-circuit when they come in contact with parts of the motor and frame. It is also a good plan to have the differential and transmission gears steam cleaned every few thousand miles. Small particles of metal and sediment from the grease are very harmful to the teeth of the gears. They can most effectively be removed by the steam-clean-ing method. STRAINING THE PETROL. A correspondent sends me the following cutting from ‘The Fireman,’ which throws more light on the danger of straining petrol through chamois leather: A chauffeur in a private garage at Brookline (Mass.) hung a five-gallon can on the hook of a common self-measuring petrol pump. The can had a wooden handle, which insulated it from the mouth of the pump. When the chauffeur had drawn about a gallon a spark jumped from the can to the pump, and set fire to tho petrol. He threw the can out of tho open door, and, after extinguishing the lire, repeated the operation with the sa.mo can, when it caught fire a second time in exactly the same manner. ‘ Fire and Water Engineering' explains the circumstance as resulting from the generation of electricity by friction of petrol with other materials, and remarks: “There is great danger con nected with filtering petrol through chamois skin ; in fact, petrol and chamois skin make a, very deadly combination. Suppose, for instance, that a petrol tank in. an automobile is about to bo filled. The funnel is placed in tho hole for filling. The chamois strainer is placed in the funnel and petrol turned on. As it pours through the chamois it generates static electricity. Static electricity may be defined as electricity that is at rest. It is an agent neither of construction nor destruction, so long as nothing is done to unleash it. Static electricity, generated bv the petrol, is stored up in the funnel. As long as it is. in contact with the petrol tank there is no danger, as it is well '-rounded : but if tho funnel be held a short distance away from the tank arid the operation continued, enough static electricity'would eventually accumulate in the funnel to jump the gap between (ho funnel and the tank, producing an electric spark. In so doing the spark passes

across the opening between the end of the funnel and tho edge of the tank through which petrol fumes arc rising. Tho result is invariably an explosion.” HERE AND THERE. Motorists who use Stafford street will he pleased that the two spring-breaking cro'shms at the intersection of Hope street, have been practically levelled, and can now bo taken at a reasonable Sliced ■\u attempt is to be made on Brook.am! ; track, England, to cram 2,400 miles into twenty-four hours’ driving on a six-cylin-der “‘Sunbeam ” car, which has been specially prepared for tho feat. The Taicri roads arc in splendid condition just now, but the Mam road is the best wav out, as the Kaikorai Valley road, near Ashbu.rn Hall, is very rough, with new metal only partially blinded. In two periods of twelve hours a, light ear— an “ A.C.” —has succeeded in negotiating 1.709 miles 1,234 yards in twentyfour hours. This wonderful performance was equal to seventy-one miles per hour, and was accomplished on Dunlop tyres at Brookhmds, England. A HELP. A pal of mine bought a Ford. Met him a few weeks after, and asked: “wen, how’s she going, Jack?” “Oh, shes ah ririit,” he replied, “if you lean tnrwanl when you're going up a hill.”—‘ Smith s.