CURIOUS ERRORS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 47, Issue 2665, 3 September 1937, Page 6

CURIOUS ERRORS

STORIES FROM THE SHOPS REVERSED FAN BELT TROUBLE. Two good stories of queer troubles that bothered motor engineers were recently related. One was of a new engine that would run for two or three revs.,- stop, and cbuld then be turned by hand for a round half an hour, when it would repeat the procedure and then again stop. This defied all efforts to cure until it was discovered that a camshaft wheel had an odd number of teeth. In consequence, about once every 30 minutes the timing came into phase and the engine would run for a brief interval before another period of instartability. In the other case gear bother was experienced by a manufacturer who ordered and had built a large number of rear’ axles in which the pinion was mounted on the wrong side of the crown wheel. In consequence the first car assembled was found to have one speed forward and four speeds backwards, and the only way of countering this was to change all the camshafts and run the engines backwards to suit. That was long before the war, but immediately after it a certain firm in the Midlands changed their dynamo-cum-fan drive. Summer was setting in and they were troubled with violent boiling. This was thought to be due to inadequate radiator size, and it was quite a long time before someone noticed that the revised dynamo drive had' resulted in the fan being driven the wrong way round.