MISSING NUTS

Evening Star, Issue 22806, 15 November 1937, Page 15

MISSING NUTS

THE AMATEUR MECHANIC Anyone who -watches skilled -mechanics at work is generally impressed by their inborn sense of routine. When a job has been done few bolts or nuts or spring washers have been lost, very little time is wasted picking out the right nut for the right place. How different is the performance of the ordinary car owner when force of circumstances or a certain inquisitiveness causes him to undertake a jobl Any amount of time is wasted looking for things, putting small bolts in large holes, long bolts where short should be, bodging up things because the originals have been lost, doing without split pins or washers because neither are available at the moment.

And it is all so unnecessary! The first appliance required for a job of work is a clean, empty box or tin into which all the parts removed can bo placed; bolts and nuts, and screws and washers, can as a rule be replaced at once in the holes from which they came while you remember which belongs to which. By that method very much time and trouble is saved, and it is much more likely that the job done will be right. Remember, the whole day may be wasted if you have to start a visitinground of ironmongers’ shops endeavouring to replace a missing bolt of a certain size. Remember also that nuts lacking spring washers fall off only too willingly, and that their loss may entail expensive damage. The only thing with which the amateur mechanic should supply himself is a plentiful assortment of split pins of all sizes and types, for as a rule a split pin, once withdrawn from its hoi© m the bolt, is in no real condition to be used again. And the manufacturer docs not put split pins in bolts for no reason, for the process is expensive. He puts them there to ensure that an important bolt or nut is definitely locked and cannot come undone.