MOTORING & MOTORISTS

Evening Star, Issue 20167, 6 May 1929, Page 12

MOTORING & MOTORISTS

[BY RADIATOR.]

HINTS AND TIPS CLEANING THE CRANKCASE. Tlie best time to empty and flush tiic crank ease is after coming in from a long run, when the engine is still hot, and” before the. impurities have had lime to settle in the bottom of rho sump. The drain cock should he left open for übub half an hour to give the oil an opportunity to gravitate down from all the parts. .In those cars which have the drain cock at the rear end of the crank case the draining is more rapidly and better done by jacking up the front of the car. But it. is most essential that the back wheels should he chocked before this is done. CUBE FOR BODY NOISES. Rattles or squeaks in the bonnet may be cured by oiling the hinges and buffer cords/ If the buffer cords arc damped or flattened the noise may be stopped by inserting narrow strips of rubber from an old tube. Squeaks from floor boards may bn overcome by greasing the edges of the boards or facing them with strips of aluminium, felt, or rubber. KELP FOOT OFF CLUTCH. The tendency, especially among beginners, to drive with the foot on the clutch is strongly deprecated by engineers. Those who arc addicted to this bad habit will soon learn by a iittie perseverance that it is more com lor lable to drive with the foot on the floor of the ear. Driving with the foot on the clutch causes rapid wear ol the most vital part of the driving mechanism. Keep “ dry ” plates in good condition by washing occasionally with kerosene, which should ho allowed to spread over the friction surfaces while the plates are separated. With ‘ wet ’’ clutches see that they arc lubricated regularly and kept properly adjusted. SPARKING PLUG CABLES. The rubber-insulated wires which run from the ignition unit to the sparking plugs are occasionally responsible for a mysterious loss of power. The rubber gradually perishes. In time cracks in the insulation appear, and should the wires pass close to any metal parts of the engine the current may short circuit through the cracks to the engine, causing misfiring. In cases where the cables show signs of serious deterioration it is a sound policy to replace them with new ones. TESTS FOR EYESIGHT. There is a move in the United States to make eyesight tests for motor drivers compulsory under a national system. At present several States enforce tests when issuing driving licenses, but the introduction of tests would be impossible in many districts, owing to the iact that twelve States do not require any ’license or registration apart from that in relation to the vehicle itself. In response to a question the_ police chiefs of sixty-eight American cities have notified their approval of some system of ensuring effective vision. The tact that there are about 23.000,000 motor drivers in the United States renders it impossible to consider anything beyond -he testing of new motori.sls taking the road for the first time. CHECK ON MIXTURE. How the accelerator can serve as a check on the carburettor mixture ms one of the interesting chnpteis in iai care. Merely by noting how the eurrine acts when the acceleiatoi is pressed, it is possible to-know whether the carburettor is correctly adjusted. Suppose, for example, you are eager to get ahead in traffic, you step on the throttle, expecting to dart ahead, hut are surprised to find that the car slows sharply as though you had applied the brakes. This indicates that the mixture is too lean tor this sort ■of driving. If, on the other huuu, I the engine picks up when the ac- ' celerator is pressed clown slowlv the ! chances are that the mixture is ideal i For a long pull up a steep hill where abnormal ' engine heat changes tne eillciency of The carburettor. abandoned cars. The question of what to do with worthless cars is becoming finite a harassing problem to the police and local authorities in America,. Hundreds are found every week abnncloned* on the rouds niid eisoxvheic. Hitherto in most cities the police have deposited these decrepit vehicles on vacant and unused plots of land, but such places ha ve either been It 11 ecl to overflowing or the land is wanted toi Ijuiiding. At Cleveland a smelting plant like a glorified dust destructor has been built to "consume the wrecks, and New York has a similar scheme under consideration, though an alternative in the latter case is a fleet of barges on which the derelicts can he taken out to sea and dropped overboard. In one State it has been made a criminal offence to abandon a car on the road. Purchasers ol land on the outskirts of New York are often compelled to spend as much as £3O or £4O in clearing abandoned cars from their newly-acqnircd property. FABRIC BODIES. Just now fabric bodies appear to be becoming popular; to a certain extent they save the owner-driver work, in that ho has no body to polish; on the other hand, fabric requires occasional cleaning. The idea, of course, originated in France after the wav. the French roads were ui a. very bad state after live years of war, and so manufacturers were casting about tor a better method of springing. M. Weymann' conceived the idea of building a Wooden frame with flexible joints, thus getting lightness as well as easy riding. Now the only thing that he could find to allow a little movement in the body was fabric. As the vogue spread and motorists found that . the fabric wore well and required very little looking after, English manufacturers stretched fabric over an ordinary wooden framework. They thus obtained the appearance of a Weymann body without the structural differences. This typo is known as a fabric body, and nearly every maker includes such a model in his range,.

Brief accounts of holiday trips, roads, and places of interest are invited for this column.

MUSIC OF THE GEARS. Drivers who rely upon the ear tq inform them of the correct moment to change gear are said to exeicise the same sense that makes lor competence in a- musician. By careful observation of the notes which emanate from the bonnet under certain conditions, says" a writer in the ‘ Austin Magazine/ the intelligent driver soon knows the best moment at which to change gears, and when the lever may be snicked into a good position. Without any mechanical knowledge whatever it is possible for a driver thus to appreciate his car’s requirement,. To test this proceed at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour in top gears and note carefully the music of' the engine. Proceed at the same speed, but in second gear, and again take note. Here is the point—the note that yon produced at twenty-live miles an hour in top is the note you must seek to create before snicking the lever from neutral to top position. The note that was evident at twenty-live miles an hour in second is the note that yon need before moving from neural into that notch. Thus gear-changing becomes a hue art, but it is also an accomplishment of the greatest importance to the driver of any car. binding his brakes gone on a dangerous hill, he can tell by ear when to change gears lor the purpose of retarding the car. LACK OF KNOWLEDGE. Motors aro so reliable that the sellers of them too frequently tail to show the purchaser some of the important details. A motorist who lias travelled only several thousand mites was recently towed for twenty aides to a garage because a fuse had blown out. To replace it was a matter of moments, but the owner had no idea, where the luso was to be found; ho would not have known the fuse if ho had seen it. Another was held up for two hours because the switch went out of order. He did not know, and could not find out how to open the instrument to adjust it. A moment or two spent by the salesman iu anticipating probable trouble and giving advice would have saved the motorist a worrying time. Few, it any, novices are shown how to adjust a spark plug or the make and break of a magneto. Too frequently the instruction books aro coni using tb the novice. Another motorist provides a further example of trouble through ignorance. Having mu his petrol tank dry he was unaware of the functioning of the vacuum tank. lie had not been shown how to prime it, and this driver haul to wait for a long time until a more experienced driver stopped and showed him what to do. Some sellers say that the less an owner knows the better, because with a little knowledge ho is likely to start meddling with adjustments, and will get into trouble. This may be so in some cases, but no novice should set out on a long tour until he learns to do the toll Giving

Clean and adjust plugs. Remove, clean, and replace earbuietter jets. Replace fuses, adjust distributer points or magneto make and break. If battery ignition how to get n start if Through carelessness battery is run down overnight through leaving switch in “on ” position. How to start engine with crank haudk'.

How to clean oiu petrol pipe and filters.

How to get to a repair shop if oil pump fails. How to make a temporary repair to a broken petrol pipe or union. How to reprime a vacuum tank it petrol runs out, and what to do if vacuum tank will not function. How to adjust brakes. How to apply a patch to a punctured cube

It would be a good plan for cadi novice owner to go over these points carefully. Each make of car differs in detail, although all parts perform the same work. On some cars, for example. the fuses arc in view; in others they are in such obscure places that only an experienced owner can find them. In half an hour the novice can learn enough to make him feel complete confidence in his ability to take a long tour without risk of being delayed by what to him would otherwise be an obscure trouble

USES FOR THIN OIL. It is not a bad idea occasionally to purchase a small tin of thin lubricating oil, such as is sold for bicycles, and costing at most sixpence. For this there is a multitude of uses.

The makers tell one not to over-oil the magneto, but it needs a drop or two occasionally, and thin oil is the stuff to use. Apply some to the door locks and hinges; next run rapidly over the rods and joints of the carbuettor and magneto controls. The bonnet springs will be all the better for a spot, as also the speedometer cable for, sny, an egg cup full. If there are any accessories with moving parts, such as a foot-operated tyre pump, do not forget that they, too, require occasional lubrication. THIRTY YEARS AGO. Thirty years ago before the great motoring public knew the lure of concrete roads, filling stations, country clubs, and camp sites, French automobile enthusiasts had already organised long-distance races under ordinary road conditions, to prove the fitness of motor cars for touring. Causing great excitement in France, and only a few ripples in other parts of the - world, one of the first of these contests was mu from Baris to Bordeaux and back, in June, 1895. There were two American participants, Mr Gordon Bennett and Air Vanderbilt. The race was won by Levassor (of Panhard and Lcvassor, the famous French motor car builders), who made the round trip of 738 miles in 48h ISiiiin. “He supervised the machine himself constantly except when the rate of speed was comparatively slow, and when he had entrusted the lever to his mechanic. Yet lie, did not appear to be over-fatigued; he gave the final signal to the registering clerk with a firm hand, and took with great relish a enp of bullion, two poached eggs, and two glasses of champagne’’ (according to an account of early ro'ad tests in France, written in 1899 by the Marquis do Chasselonp-Laubat). The winning “carriage” was a “petroleum vehicle,” and the outstanding feature of the race was the triumph of petrol over steam. Of the fifteen petrol cars which made the start, eight got back to Paris, while only one of the six steam driven -“carriages’/- managed to stick

out to the finish. The Marquis, who was a steam enthusiast, continued to he an adherent of steam, however. In the second big race, from Paris to Marseilles and hack, in September, IB9G, lie and his brother drove a steampropelled car, but they never got further than Lyons (about 015 miles from Paris), and they were eighty-five hours in covering that distance. “We spent, forty-seven hours on repairs on tiie open road,” he confessed, “part of that time in drenching rain. Almost every part of the mechanism was out of order, and wo had every breakdown conceivable except an absolute explosion of the boiler. We ran down a dog, overturned two carts (whose drivers, frightened at the sight of our enormous machine, turned to the left at the last moment), upset a cow, and finally broke down a fence in trying to make a turn on soft and heavy soil.” Among other recorded misfortunes one car in the Paris-Marscilles race was defeated “in consequence of a rupture in its large pneumatic tyres, which a manufacturer had fitted to it without having studied and perfected them sufficiently.” As to speed, the “mean velocity” of the winners in these two contests was about fifteen miles an hour, with a maximum of eighteen to nineteen maintained through several hours in a level region. Carried away by what lie saw corning in the future, the Marquis prophesied the expansion of suburbs, with the possibility of a man’s living ten to fifteen miles from his office, and a revolution in rural conditions.

It was In ISO!) that he published these opinions, but the average person could scarcely have understood them. A year later the vSecretary of Agriculture in America, in discussing the problem of good roads, never so much as mentioned the automobile; yet today they have 2-1,750,000 automobiles, and an output of something like 1.000,000 motor vehicles annually.

SEGRAVE'S RECORD. HIS OWN ACCOUNT. Ry the latest mail from Loudon details of the wonderful one-mile world record established early last month on the Daytona Beach, as described personally ' by Major Sir Henry Segravc, were received. On that occasion, it will bo remembered, the record was regained fur Britain by Sir Henry Segravc, who raised tlw, previous record, 207.55 miles an hour, ny Ray Keecli. m the American threc-cugined car, the Triplex Special, to 231.5 G miles an hour. Full details of Segravc s car, the IrviugN a pier Special Golden Arrow, ha\e already appeared in this column; it is sufficient to say that it iiad a -Napier twelve-cylinder engine; ui about -jl>U li.p. nominally, installed in a body of novel appearance. , Immediately after Ins success >-ii Hciirv Segravc communicated bis own impressions of the loat by the tiansatlantic telephone to the ‘ Autocar, iroin which the account is taken. He said: 1 took a run of about lour miles to ■vet up speed before entering the stretch acro.-s which the timing wires «cie laid” (the record was tuned electrically hv a machine which records to the l-lOUtitli part of a second), “and lor the hrst part of the ran 1. was able to watcli the icy. counter dial and cnango Iroin lirst to second, and then ii’om oml to top gear exactly at 3,2UU revolutions a minute. The coiiunenccmeiu and finish of the measured section wore indicated by two immense trestles oUlt liicrh and with a wire between them, on”which was suspended a large red are lamp. This could he picked up rongiils a mile away. , , . . “ When i could see tbo light used the foresight which Imng, the designer, had put on the car in the plac,usuallv occupied by the radiator cap, and a rough form of back sight and though the great difficulty was to >ce the course properly these sights we e very useful. As it happened the weather was very bad indeed; there was mist king in patches all along the couvsc“and the visibility in general jus pretty bad, about three-quarters of a mile, in fact, though m .places I could see' for as much as a mile. I hat wa-, why the arc lamps were so useful to show up the beginning and end of the course. The condition of the sand was verv bad, certainly worse than when I went last time, and J am told worse even than when Campbell made las record run. There was water on the sand lor considerable stretches. THE CAR’S QUALITIES.

"The car behaved exactly the same each nm, north and south, but on the lirsfc run water coming ITom a pipe near the engine began to spray over my windshield, and 1 had to look round the od'o; of the screen, which was not a very pleasant performance. \t the end of the first run, durinc/ which, by the way, the car bandied extremely well, the mechanics changed all lour wheels as a precaution, and put in more water and more fuel in limm Idsee, the trouble with the water pipe being' cured at the same time. 'lhe wind during both runs was something in the nature of 20 to 25 miles an hour, and blowing dead on the side of the ear all the time. . . "One interesting point was that the cockpit during the whole run was Irce from fumes and quite cool, a big point, since engine fumes have a very bad effect on the driver, and it would be quite easy for the temperature to become unbearable if the design of the Golden Arrow had not been rigid. In answer to a question, Segruvc added; "The ear never reached ds maximum owing to the conditions, a .a „jven anything like good weather and smoother sand I think, though it is extremely difficult to say, that some lour or five miles an hour could be added to the present average.” Ho remarked that during both runs it was impossible u/hcar the sound of the exhaust pipes, although they were in front of the car. because of the roar of the wind past Ins cars. , . .. . Segrave s actual times, as given by the ‘ Autocar.’ show that in the first run over the kilometre he averaged 575 kilometres (just over 2d’, juiles) an hour, and over the mile 2:31-.oil m.p.h. On the second run the average over the kilometre was 569.989 kilometres an hour, and over the mile 231.215 miles an hour. The mean of the two runs over the mile was 231.3G2 miles an hour. Over the kilometre the mean speed of the two runs was 1572.478 kilometres an hour, or a minute fraction greater speed for the mean of the two runs than that of the niilc. WIRE WHEELS. According to the statistics gleaned at the New York Automobile Show, wire wheels arc in growing favour in the United States of America. At this recent show, out of 284 cars 60 per cent, had wire wheels, 31 per cent, wood, and C per cent, disc wheels,

while at the small show out of 11G cars wire wheels appeared on 73 per cent., wood on 2G per cent., and disc on i per cent. It is stated that wire wheels would have been m even greater prominence were it not ’ for difficulties of supply- ■ fire precautions. ASH-TRAYS IX CARS. An Act is contemplated in California (U.S.A.) to force every motorist to equip his vehicle with a receptacle for cigar and cigarette butts. If it passes the Legislature, failure to have such an ash-tray in the car will ho an offence. ’ This legislation has been suggested by the-number of bushfires in California last summer. It is claimed that the majority of tbo fires were started by tourists,' and in most cases were caused by carelessly thrown cigar and cigarette stubs.

MOTOR CYCLING FIXTURES. May ll.—Club events. May 15. —Monthly meeting. June 1. —Camberley scramble. SPEEDOMETER POSITION. The speedometer mounted on the tank is not meeting with general approval. It is admittedly neat and not liable to damage, but the criticism is that it be so easily read as in the conventional position on the handle-bars. The speedometer is generally read at speed, arid in most cases it means a downward glance, whereas a dial mounted on the handle-bars conies within the rider's normal angle of vision. .

There is much in this argument, and the case is not quite the, same as with a car. It has boon suggested that the tank top is equivalent to the motor ear dash-board, but the conditions are not similar. Even if they were, it does not prove much, for many car speedometers cannot be read with accuracy or safely at real speed owing to thcii position. Certainly the tank top is a good place for a clock, which can be looked at when convenient, but the speedometer reading is required when the rider needs to concentrate on the road ahead. Of course, much depends upon the position of the dial on the tank and the angle of the tank top, and it is difficult to believe that the tank top position does not represent an advantage as regards the average touring mount, if not the racing machine. SCHRADER VALVE HINT. If a motor cyclist should he - unfortunate enough to be delayed on the road miles from any garage through tyre valve trouble, the following tip will probably prove useful, provided a tube of rubber solution is available. Coat the rubber part of the valve, after removing it from the wheel, very thickly with solution, and smear sonic aUo on the part where the tiny robber washer has been. Allow- tbo rubber solution to dry for a few minutes, and thou replace the valve and pump the tyre up. The rubber solution, in drying, acts as an additional coat of rubber, and, of course, prevents air leakage oven for some days.

RACING MEN NOT RECKLESS. In a case heard at the Liverpool Assizes, in which a motor cyclist claimed damages for the loss of a leg in a collision with a ear, the defending counsel, by inference, suggested that the rider’s" local reputation as a sand racer indicated that he was by nature a reckless driver.

The siigggestion is a particularly easy one to make, but it should he borne in mind that participation in trials and racing develops road sense in a very high degree—the success ol any competitor is negligible if he is reckless, since the very essentials for success are clear and instant judgment. If all motorists bad to” undergo a course of competition driving the general standard of driving ability would (says 1 The Motor Cycle ’) he far above the present average. Motor cyclists, through being more interested in competitions than car drivers, arc as a class considerably more expert in the control of their machines, and it is their very skill which frequently gains lor them a reputation for recklessness. Any rider who has had a fairly successful experience of competition work may ho passed as a, driver of more than average merit, and the things which he may do that disturb the equanimity of nervous ear drivers are perhaps less reckless than their own temerity is sitting behind a steering wheel.

HERE AND THERE. A motor car suspension system which gives independent springing of each wheel, and which, it is claimed, can he easily adapted to most makes of existing cars, is being developed in France, it is known as the Flexatic system. In Canada there is now- one car to every nine persons. Known as the Alomiic continuous chassis lubrication system, an ingenious method of oiling has made its appearance in America. It is a central lubricating equipment, which feeds oil to the spring shackles while the ear is in motion, lint not while it is stationary. * * * * ft is reported that the Government of Algeria is organising a -1,500 miles car race across the Sahara. The race, which will take about fourteen weeks to run, is duo to start on January 1, 1930. #

TIMES FOR LIGHTING UP. To-day 5.LH1 Tuesday ... ... 5/28 Wednesday 5.27 Thursday 5/25 Friday 5/2/ Saturday 5.22 Sunday 5/21