"LAZY" MOTOR-CYCLE ENGINES.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIII, Issue 252, 24 October 1919, Page 2

"LAZY" MOTOR-CYCLE ENGINES.

SYMPTOMS AND CURE

' It is a common expsrience for tlie garage proprietor and mechanic to hn\e n^otoi'-cycles of high power with side-car ittached brought to them with..the complaint that "power is falling off and hills can no longer be satisfactorily climbed." They are afked to diagnose and remedy the cause, and very often this provides them with a somewhat formidable tfsk. All the ordinary specifics fail on occasio/is to restor-? the power of the engine, and it then becomes a ■letter of more thorough investigation, often necessitating the complete dismemberment of the engine and a careful scrutiny of the interior working parts. Lack of power may result from '.'o many different and pre-dis-pc-sing causes, not. one of which maj/ be. very strongly pronounced. The cfabui-etito-.-, whilst appearing all right, may coiK-sivab'y possess some trivial fault which, added to the fact 'that t.he contact breaker and plug points nead cleaning and setting, the velve caps are leaking slightly and the rings partly stuck in their grooves1, will produce a Jazy. engine. None of thes-3 faults may be present in , a degree sufficient to cau&e the engine to develop serious failure, but they, with others, are there in a ireasui'e which in combination suffices to rob the engine of its power and cause it to perform indifferently, so that it falls far short of what is reqtired of it.

In such circumstances what, is needed is a thorough overhaul, including l'fpybe, grinding oi; the valves, cleaning of the fist on and cylinder li't&us, fnieing of the" I*!ii»'s nr Iheii' grooves, washing out and re-lubri-catin.fj, of t!ie bearings, cleaning out the c.-.rburettoi'j setting and flesriing of the contact breaker and phu; points, nibbing to a clean surface the ends of he carbon brusb.es, and so on: a formidable list, it may appear, but in reality it is nothing of the Fort. In the course of such an overhang othsr slight defects may come to light, whilst on the other hand some of those detailed above may prove" to- be uncalled for.' Only the actual observati'.) i of a given individual case can decide the point, but it is inconceivable that, with all these points attended to faulty belu.iior on the part- of the engine can continue. If it did, it would suggest tho existence of more serious trouble, such, for insitauce, as leakage of compression through a crack in the piston or cylinder, loo^e bearings, or something of an equnlly drastic kind, the evidences of which would in nil probability be too pronounced to escape -'.letaction.'