MOTORING & MOTORISTS

Evening Star, Issue 19352, 11 September 1926, Page 18

MOTORING & MOTORISTS

[BY RADIATOR.]

LIGHTNG-UP TIMES. To-day ... ... ... ... 6.11 Sunday Monday - ... 6.14 Tuesday ... ... Wednesday 6.16 Thursday „. ... ... ... 6.17 Friday - ••• 6.18 FIXTURE. September 30.—0.M.C. annual meeting. PUBLICATION RECEIVED. ‘ Big Tree Bulletin ’ for September. HINTS AND TIPS. —Headgear for Dirty Jobs.— When it becomes necessary to crawl underneath tho car the provision of some kind of hat is important, as nothing is more offensive or difficult to remove from the hair than gear oil and mud. The ordinary old hat is not much good, as the brim catches in things and causes the hat to bo pulled off, while a cloth cap is not much better in this respect. The ideal covering.is the crown of an old bowler hat. Get an old hat about one size- too largo, cut the brim off with a pair of scissors and wear the crown pressed close down on the head, pierrot style. This will give complete protection from both dirt and scratches, and cannot bo pulled off accidentally or Icnocked over the eyes. —Drying Rain Curtains. — Allow' the rain curtains to dry unfastened. This will enable them to shrink a little, thus assuring a better fit when they are fastened on again. Undoing Jthe lower fasteners will suffice. —Preservation of Coliuloso Paintwork. — It has been noticed that a shower of rain falling on the heated surface of the bonnet and scuttle of a car, with the consequent drying—almost baking—ol the dampened color, has the effect sometimes ol leaving small grey or whitish spots all over the surface. The Armstrong Siddeley Company points out a preventive. Cellulose paint, it snvs, should have a rub wnth wax polish once a week, or certainly once a month, and especially the top bonnet and scuttle. The indiscernible film of w T ax that is retained by the paintwork (even after being thoroughly polished off with a dry duster) acts as a waterproof preservative coating, and nullifies this tendency to show spots. AUTOMATIC GEAR CHANGE. A gear device which makes shifts without the driver’s supervision, the invention of Mr 11. Z. Farmer, of Portland, was shown at the National Inventors’ Exposition. Those who drive automobiles and arc annoyed by the noisy meshing of gears as they make the shifts will be interested in the device. Tlio equipment will make the changes from low to high and hack again automatically and at the right time, its inventor claims. The automatic shifting is accomplished by a governor arrangement on the drive shaft. This device is said to have been tested recently by actual installation on an automobile and to have proved effective. FROM VILLAGE BOY TO MOTOR CAR KING. This is the hour of triumph of a village schoolboy, who thirty yearsago, blessed with imagination, ambition, and no money, made bicycles in Oxford and sold them to his friends. To-day the bicycle shop has been floated as a limited company with a capital of £5,000,000, and the “ boy ” is head of the greatest business of its kind in Britain. He is Mr W. R. Morris, whose Morris-Oxford and Morrk-Cowley cars represent to-day the greatest commercial triumph won by post-war British engineering. Mr Morris was bom at Worcester, of Oxfordshire parents, and attended the village school at Cowley. He had no technical or university education, but instinct led him, when ho was seventeen, to serve an apprenticeship in the bicycle trade in Oxford, and intuition stood him in better stead than any technical training would have done. After a few months he set up in ; business for himself as a maker of bicycles, although he had not a £5 note in the world. He soon had five assistants working for him, and at the end of six years ho had saved £6,000. That was in 1900, when it had become clear that the motor car was not a vehicular freak, but a factor in transport that had come to stay and grow. Mr Morris accordingly went in for making motor cycles, and after ten years, when he found he had doubled hia capital, he evolved the idea of a popular, low-priced, light car. The turning out of the first MomV 1 Oxford took two years’ constant work, but by the outbreak of war there were 1,500 Morris cars on the road. This year 67,000 Morris cars have already been ordered—nearly 20,000 more than were sold last year, “ROAD PUNCH” OF HEAVY " MOTORS, By “road punch” I mean the 1 dynamic force per square inch exerted : on the road by the wheels of a moving ! vehicle (writes F. C. Eve, in tho ) ‘Motor’). It is that which should be measured (or graded) . It is that—- ! and not x tho weight—which should be I taxed for each (new) typo of heavy 1 motor, so that designers may be in- ' duced to plan vehicles which will do least damage to the road. At present they do not care; so long as the tyres ; are not made of steel there is no legal I inducement for tho heavy motor owner j to save tho roada. I Now, what factors are comnriscd in i this conception of “ road punen ” ? Clearly a small wheel and a hard, narrow tyro will conspire to increase ■ road punch, because they reduce the ■ area which hits the road: they make the hammer head smaller and harder. Yet what multitudes of heavy motors have such wheels, especially in front I “ Road punch.” will evidently in- ' crease with the speed of the motor; benoe the speed limit imposed—but seldom enforced—on heavy motors.

| “Eoad punch” depends greatly on road surface; for with round wheels on a perfectly level road it is nonexistent. But the slightest inequality will lift the wheels to a height dependent on the speed, and they will crash down again and uidqnt the road- This ; dent will lift the next wheels which i pass over it and make another dent beyond. And so wo get those infernal ripples on the road which we never knew till the railway strike of 1917 filled the frail old roads with heavy motor lorries. So I call them u lorry ripples,” They shape and shatter all vehicles, and compel slow speeds. I believe each heavy motor has its own wave length in this regard: it is a kind’of pendulum effect. At its usual speed a bus, for instance, will produce ripples of a length peculiar to itself, de[lending on its wheel base, height, and the harshness of its springs, etc. Hence licensing authorities might well stipulate that buses on any one route should bo of different types. Then a bus which makes a Ift ripple would iaad. fcj iaoa oat the.

BrM iMoants ®f lioEday trips, roads, and places of Merest tm invited for this column.

a 155 nor 18in wave length. Better still, to refuse to license buses with the destructive solid tyres (as in South Franco). Fast-moving steel tyres exert the “road punch” of a - stone-breaking hammer; 1 have seen a stone embedded in tho road in this way split radially into several fragments. Another factor in “ road punch ” is the height of the centre of gravity of the motor in comparison with its wheel base. A long, low body pitches very little; a high body on a short wheel base pitches into every depression in the road with a forceful and destructive road punch'. Now, Irjiw can " road punch ” be measured? I havo a simple and equitable plan for grading each (new) design of heavy motor into perhaps six grades of road-destroying power for taxation purposes. But, apart from that, I believe my conception and name of “ road punch ” is of value, for it focuses our minds on a factor which can be measured and taxed. In ray opinion it summarises nearly all the factors in the wheel destruction of our roads.

It is national stupidity to allow heavy motors of bad design, or by a trifling saving in solid tyres, to waste enormous sums of public money in avoidable destruction of our splendid roads. The mere weight of a heavy motor is a poor guide to the destruction it will cause: the former is statics, the latter depends on dynamics of movement. Hence the present Budget proposal to tax heavy motors by mere weight—although better than nothing—misses the main point of road destruction, which is “road punch.” Also it discourages design. Some of tho latest motor buses are very heavy, but exert very little “road punch,” owing to their clever design. “ SWITCHING-OFF ” IN FRANCE. One of tho things they do not do bettor in France, as many British tourists havo found, is to require motorists to switch off their headlights when meeting another car. Tho practice is absolutely compulsory under the new “ Code de la Route,” but has entirely changed the view’s of those who formerly were not altogether converted to the belief that switching off is more dangerous than brilliant lights. Compulsion admits of no discretionary action, and therein lies the evil. If a single car be driven along a narrow lane and meets another single car, it may or may not ho advisable for the driver of each to reduce the power cf his illumination, but a ,jerlorjlly farcical state of affairs is produced on a road such as that between Nice and Cannes, when there is an almost continuous procession of tars, motor cycles, and push bicycles. It >s ntterlv impossible for a driver, if alone, to control the switch and attend -o his dri.ing as well, and it is quite as much as he and the front passenger can manage in conjunction, Tho result is that the driver’s eyes are perpetually adapting themselves to a change of focus, and at any moment a push cyclist, showing no red light, may be overtaken unobserved until he is all but under the front wheels. Tho sooner the French Government rescinds the compulsory clause in tho “ Code de la Route ” tho better, states the ‘ Motor.’ . GRADED PETROL. The compulsory grading of pptrol is causing much concern in Australia. Motorists are demanding some protection from unscrupulous mixing of the brands. Tho Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce Iran been active in keeping a check on dealers, and has been aiming for legislation to compel vendors to specify the grade in each pump. This has resulted in a number of proprietary names being removed from the pumps and tho substitution of labels bearing the assurance: “First grade petrol. Guaranteed by the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce.” The oil companies are not pleased with the removal of their trade marks. SPEED AND THE NOVICE. The beginner who trios to run before ho can walk is a source of danger to himself and to others. He will want to see what speed ho is doing from time to time, and will watch his needle in order to change by rule instead of by sense. Instead of diverting his gaze for a moment only while obtaining all tlie information lie requires from the

meter, be will search about and absent his attention from the road for a dangerously long time. If ho bad familiarised himself with the position of the instrument and the position of the various ngures, a more flicker of the eyes would havo told him ail ho wanted to know. It is, moreover, a fact that when tho inexperienced driver Is not looming ahead at the road, _he more often than not tends to divert the steering. Neatness and precision are essential to good driving, as arc developed road-sense and a fine tench an.l hearing. False confidence is highly dangerous, confidence reasonably founded—and this is largely acquired bv knowing the controls —is half tho battle won, for it saves nervousness and enables a driver to remain calm and to get on with his immediate job. MURIWAI RACING. The Muriwai Motor Sports Committoe has placod a raco for mxdgot cars on the programme for the annual raco meeting early in 1927. The committee’s endeavor to introduce class racing deserves tho greatest encouragement. The new event will be a twentymile race for cars of not more than 1,100 c.c. engine capacity. Those who have witnessed the fine performances in tho previous Light Car Cup races ior 1,500 c.c. cars will appreciate the value of fostering limited class events. By keeping small care together, handicapping can bo dispensed with. Speeds are more uniform in each race, and skilful driving and careful tuning count for much. The 1,500 c.c. races at Munwvu have always attracted a very good field. Hie same response cannot be expected tor the 1,100 c.c. class, owing to the comparatively small number .of cars with engines below this capacity. Half a dozen cars would, however, provide a contest which would be well appreciated. If enthusiastic owners of midget cars will indulge in a little tuning there is no doubt that a sufficient response should be received. The Austin Seven, Salroson, and Fraser-Nash have been conspicuous in the class below 1,100 c.c. on Brooklands track. Other care which are eligible for this class include the Araikcar, 8.3 h.p.; Citroen, 7.5; Fiat, 8.0; Gwynne, 7.5; Humber, 8.3; Jowett, 7.0; Peugeot, 6.4; Renault, 8.3; Riley, 9.0; Rover, 8.9; Swift, 8.9; Talbot, 8.9. FOUR-WHEEL BRAKES. ADOPTION FOR CHEAP CAES. Modern traffic conditions could no doubt bo alleviated if every car bad equal acceleration and braking capacity. Such a condition would bo impossible. In arty case the control of similar cars varies according to tho skill of the driver, and an occasional skilful motorist may got an efficiency from twowheel brakes approaching that of fourwheel brakes under the control of a clumsy driver. Fast care with rapid acceleration havo brought about the need for vehicles that will stop with the same celerity. Four-wheel brakes are not merely a safety measure for heavy' cars. English light car manufacturers were first to appreciate that if heavy care were to be given the ability to pull up suddenly without skidding, the small car was jeopardised unless it was capable of equivalent performance. It is not a pleasant sensation for the driver of a light car to see a six or eight cylinder vehicle ahead of his decelerate at a rate about double his own possibility of stopping. In view of the unparalleled traffic conditions, it is remarkable that American designers of light fourcylinder care did not tackle the fourwheel brake question more ambitiously. There are also several well-known cheap light sixes that do not feature fourwheel brakes, presumably on tho ground of expense. The British manufacturer of equivalent types of cars has been a better sponsor of front-wheel braking. A scoro of British light fours in tho cheap class are fitted with front-wheel brakes of the Alford and Alder mechanical type. No doubt American designers will take their lead from Britain in producing front-wheel brakes for tho cheap cars of 1927. They will be fortunate if they can improve on the simple Alford and Alder internal expanding type. The excellent hydraulic types might prove a little expensive for the cheapest cars. American factories are observing some secrecy in experimenting with the small European typo of car, but it is interesting

to observe that the first of these “ baby ” cars to be announced has four-wheel mechanical brakes. American cities are endeavoring to speed up. traffic and relieve congestion. To accomplish this without introducing fresh hazards has necessitated insistence on efficient brakes; Stopping tests arc applied without warning, and ordinary rear-wheel brakes have to be in very good order to stop the vehicle in the required distance. A more rigid test would mean that only four-whecl-brnkod cars would qualify. The extra grip of four-wheel brakes may save that few inches which mean the difference between a narrow escape and a serious accident. It a possible that a two-wheel-brake car‘'will need very careful handling in a busy street five years from now if it is to be prevented from ramming vehicles ahead. For this reason the installation of front-wheel brakes on London omnibuses is being deferred until the equipment can be made universal. CODE FOR TYRE USERS. The following may bo recommended to tyro users as the surest way to maximum tyre mileage:— ?i (1) Keep tyres properly inflated. (2) Drive with the car always well in hand, and avoid frequent braking. (3) Start and stop gradually. (4) Avoid skidding as far as possible. ! (5) Steer clear of nits, kerbs, and tramway tracks, which damage the side walls.

(6) Look out for sharp obstructions, ami drive slowly over bumps, which, with under-inflation, are tho main cause of blow-outs. (7) Iwp tho wheels in alignment. (S) Give regular attention to small tread cuts, and repair these. (9) Consult an expert vulcaniser with regard to large tread-cuts. (10) Have blisters cleaned out and repaired at once. (11) Carry spare tubes protected from chafing and cutting. (12) Be careful in applying tubes. (13) Use French chalk in tho cover, but avoid using too much. (14) Examine rims occasionally for rust, and prevent damage from this cause by using rim paint. It is a good plan to take off all tyres occasionally and clean tho rims with a wire brush. (15) Remove grease and oil from covers or tubes by using a cloth moistened with petrol. (16) Keep spare tyres covered. HERE AND THERE. Tho American Railways Association is launching another intensive campaign designed to minimise level-cross-ing accidents. This time the slogan is “Think, Driver—'Think!” Such action is worthy and necessary so long-as the level crossing itself constitutes a hazard in the traffic problem. Commenting upon the campaign, United States automobile journals think that for the of the association’s objective elimination of tho level crossing would be a vastly better measure than annual campaigning, and hope that such danger spots will practically soon be abolished. It will make railway construction most costly, but with the advent of the motor vehicle the railroad is becoming less and less necessary. * * * * It is stated that the manufacturers of the Peugeot cars have completed plans for the establishment of a branch plant in Detroit for the production of a light car with a Oft 9in wheelbase and 3ft 2in track. The cars will bo produced at the rate of about 100 a day for a start, and will compare very favorably in price with the low-priced American cars. It is expected to bo commenced in a few months’ time. * ■ * * ■>* As a means of reinforcement to prevent tho River Missouri washing away its banks at Pierre, South Dakota, old worn-dnt cars are being submerged along the water’s edge over a frontage of about a mile. * * » * Signor Mussolini is reported to have driven a powerful car 2SO miles at an average of forty miles an hour without a single stop. ° * ♦ * * In 1925 more than 245,000,0001 b of copper wire were used by the automobile industry. This amount constitutes a record figure. * * * * Next year Paris polios will enforce an order making it necessary for all cars to carry an illuminating signalling device. & ■* * ■» None of the many German cars are represented in New Zealand, but tyres and accessories are in slowly. German tyre;, valued at £973 were imported into tho dominion for tho first months of this year. German materials and accessories imported i'or the same period wore valued at £743. * ' * * * Mother Shipton, who died some 120 years ago, is now regarded as the real prophetess of the modern automobile by reason of her famous saying that “ Carriages without horses shall, go.” A movement has been initiated to erect an appropriate statue in London to the memory of this far-seeing old lady. * * * ■» A Californian inventor claims to have discovered a chemical process whereby tyres can be made from synthetic rubber produced from weeds, straw, and similar vegetation. K * •5* A fleet of armored cabs will shortly be placed in service by the Post Office Department of Washington (U.S.A.) in lino with a now idoa. developed for transporting mails. The department announces that tho cabs have been especially adapted to transport registered mail at the larger post offices throughout the country, and they will resemble, in a measure, the army fighting tanks used’in the World War, and will afford added protection against robberies by the so-called mail bandits. * * * ' * Tho Ajax car will shortly b© known as tho Nash light six. The change of name is a sequel to tho absorption of Aiax Motors, previously subsidiary, by the parent company. * * * * " Why aren’t there places for' pedestrians?” asks a motorist. He forgets our commodious cemeteries. » * * ■* From a report of a Magistrate’s Court case in Oamam The brakes were applied, tho differential put into reverse.