Random Notes

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 9 March 1935, Page 15

Random Notes

It is estimated that the world’s consumption of petroleum, its products and related fuels, last year was 1438 million barrels, a substantial increase over 1933, but hot equal to the peak consumption of 1929.

A number of trying and hard-to-traee troubles can be brought home to the practice of using mixed sparking plugs. Drivers in emergency obtain unsuitable plugs from garages, and in some engines plugs of various types and sizes will be found in use.- These should be changed at the earliest op-

portunity to the plugs recommended by the vehicle manufacturers. It is * mistaken economy not to do so. One of the trouble plugs of varying length cause is a variation in compression. They may have also a tendency towards pre-ignition.

Taking over her first car, a small saloon, a woman motorist was told not to exceed 20 miles an hour in the first two or three hundred miles, and not to drive faster than 30 miles an hour for the next hundred. At the end of a week she brought the car back with a big-end far bigger than it should have been and a heartrending knock. j No, she most certainly had never exceeded 20 miles an hour, and to make sure that she would not go too fast had driven the car for the first three hundred miles on bottom gear.

It is a simple matter to join permanently a flat belt of the kind often used for driving fans. The ends must first be chamfered for a couple of inches, and then emeared with fish glue, which is allowed to become tacky before the ends are pressed together and clamped till dry. Usually the glue alone will hold the belt indefinitely, Hfut as a precaution a couple of tacks may be added, the points being to the inside surface of the belt and -«well hammered down. As an alterna/tive to glue, six or eight' tacks will fasten the belt very securely. Chamfering of the belt may be done with a sharp knife, but if a carpenter s plane is available a better job can be done with it.

The correct procedure when changing a wheel of the bolt-on type is as follows : Before jacking up the car remove the spare wheel and just slacken off the nuts of the wheel which is to be changed for a turn or so. Then jack the cer up, remove the wheel, and immediately put on the spare, which should be kept as close at hand as passible. The reasons are as follows : If the bolts are undone when the car is jacked up an unnecessary strain maybe put on the brakes, or if the brakes are not being used the means of preventing the wheel revolving—usually by means of wedging one’s leg against it—will spoil one’s clothes. The spare wheel should be removed before jacking up, as in detaching it one might easily shake the car off the jack. Byplacing the spare ion the bolts immediately ,the risk of the car falling off t|io jaok on the brake drum is reduced to a minimum. When putting on the wheel, place the nuts inside the wheel brace and tighten up as much as possible with the jack raised, then lower the jack and tighten the nuts completely.

Corrosion of battery terminal thimbles ancl the surrounding exposed copper cable is duo to the creeping of the acid solution from the cells, and in a minor degree probably to fumes. The effect is that not only is the metal gradually eaten away, but the products of corrosion set up a very high electrical resistance between the lug of the battery and the connector. When it is desired to remedy that condition it is necessary to remove all traces of corrosion before protecting the terminal with any acid-resisting compound. An easy method is to plunge the end of the cable and its connector into a boiling solution of water ancl cloudy ammonia. That Will neutralise all the deposits and the parts can then be rinsed in hot water, cleaned with a fit or emery paper, and the connector replaced on the terminal lufg of the battery which should also be scraped clean beforehand. Finally, after the connector has been sc row eel tightly ino place, lie part can he coated with vaseline, or an acid-proof compound such as sealing wax dissolved in. methylatod spirits.