MOTORING AND CYCLING.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 196, 19 August 1912, Page 3

MOTORING AND CYCLING.

T CARBURETION, LUBRICATION, 1 AND IGNITION.

(By A. Leatherhead.) This publication goes to press in 37 minutes. I "have just been asked by the editor to take my typewriter in hand and ruin a couple of perfectly good pages of this magazine with an essay on ignition, carburetion, and lubrication. . There are three reasons why I was chosen to dash off this stuff. Firstly: I know less about these important subjects than any living man. Secondly: I can. write faster than anybody else because it involves no thinking whatever, as you can see. Thirdly: No one will ever read it anyway. Before attempting to write on the subject of oarburetion, lubrication and ignition, I thought it best to find out what these funny big Words mean, so I asked Billy the Barkeep to explain them to me. ""; 'Sxire ting, dats dead easy, says he. "I'll explain it to youse, and give youse movin' pichers wid me lecture." He gathered some bottlea before him on the bar. "Now I'll mix youse a pint of Clover Club cocktails —that s carburetion 1" He handed me the mixture. "Now oil up your whistle —drink em' down." Painful as the operation was, I obeyed.' "That's lubrication!" I began to feel dizzy in the steeple. The room seemed to twist and squirm about in an annoying fashion. The bar danced the Bunny Hug with the free lunch table, and I madte a grab for the door as it came past me and started for home. "That's ignition!" shouted Billy after me. "You'e lit up!" But far be it from me to make light of so serious a subject. All jokes aside, I have had! some epxeriences along these lines, and will attempt to explain these functions of engineering in words so simple and elementary that: even a graduate of Victoria College could' understand them. ".; The carburetor is a little vestibule at the front door of the motor in whibh the petrol and air, perfect strangers to each other, are introduced. Bad air or watery petrol will start trouble ■at once. As the front door is opened and the air comes rushing in, it is soused with a stream of gas shot from a small nozzle.. This makes the air mad, and there is quite a mix-up; in fact, all that is needed to start a riot is a spark. But the builder has figured on this very thing, and just at this moment he opens a door to a corridor which leads into the top of the motor cylinder. Frantically .shouting, ' 'you - will turn the hose on me, will you?" the angry air chases the gas through into the motor. Then in order to work the mixture up to an explosive pitch, an iron battering ram shoots up and elamsit against the ceiling until it screams for help. We are now ready to start a roughhouse by inserting a white hot spark. This brings up to the subject of ignition. , .

As our old college chum, Nah! Webster, remarks, "Ignition is the act of igniting." That explains the whole proposition^ clear as drinking water. The spark juice is supplied v either from dry cells which make the- stuff to order, or from storage batteries in which ia. few pints are kept of it to be drawn off as needed1.

The snappy stuff may also be ground out of a device called the magneto^ A natural born tinker will never use a magneto. It would worry him to death because it is sealedup to make it fool-proof, and he never could take it apart.

But what is electricity anyway? This is a riddle which wise guys of the scientific world never have been able to answer. But I'll tell you what it is; It's the concentrated essence of wasp stings. I learned this when by accident I grabbed hold of a live spark plug. An electrical current is perfectly peaceful as long as you, let it alone,, but oh, mamma.! how it hates to be interrupted! Once you break its circuit it will flare up and! sizzle, and breathe forth fire arid brimstone, arid run around snapping and biting like a mad dog. The unsuspecting current is led from the batteries into a mysterious doorflicker known as the coil, where it is teased worried and irritated into a high stated of pitch by a vibrating dewdad, just as a \ peace-loving and harmless gentleman! moo-cow is tortured with banderillos or armadillos (or whatever they call those barbed dinguses they stab 'em with), before he gets Ms dander up and! is mad enough to fight the picadores, the matadores and the cuspidores in the bull ring.

And now, with malice aforethought, it is turned loose into the infuriated mixture in the cylinder. A big row ensues. A riot call is turned in and the reserves called out. The battering ram says "This is no place for a minister's son !" and runs away from the scene of the disturbance down to the bottom of the cylinder. Before the police arrive what's left of the mob manage to escape through an open door which leads down a back alley, into the muffler. This quiets the disturbance and! helps them to make their get-a-way. But this continual rowing; and' rioting tend to get the petrol motor in bad odor among its enemies, and the motor not properly cared for is liable to leave \ behind a "trail. of burnt gas perfume that should make the polecat look to its laurels.

The system of lubrication on engines was invented by the oil companies in ordter that by their profit on lubricating they might make up the terrible loss suffered in selling petrol at two bob per gallon that costs sixpence to produce. An educated proboscis easily can detect the odor of hot metal which hints of a dry bearing, but if the education of your olfactory nerves has been neglected, and you cannot take the hint, just wait awhile. Your out-, raged machine will let out a series of "Squees" and will holler for oil in no mistakable terms.

But few. motors are sd poor that they cannot sport" a sight-feed! oil works. The lubricant drops through glass tubes which are -in. plain eight any time of the day or night, week days, Sundays and holidays. From this central station you are supposed to dope each, part of the motor with the proper dose—so many drops a minute.

Some bearings usually arc kept from_ suffering; by forcing oleomargarine into their innards lw screwing down the top of. brass didoes filled with the altnost-butter.

Thus eudeth the first lessca.