MOTOR NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 76, 26 February 1938, Page 7

MOTOR NOTES

WARNING DIALS. ADVICE FOR MOTORISTS. One of the best habits the motor owner can form is that of glancing at the instruments frequently during the course of a day’s run. The story they tell of engine efficiency is and their warning of impending trouble immediate. The warning is given, indeed, some time before the trouble has developed to a serious stage. It may be said that this statement is axiomatic, and not worth putting into print, but how many motorists fail to look at their instruments from one week’s end to another? Any service station can tell stories ol ruined batteries, burned out bearings, and of motorists running out of petrol. All of these mishaps could have been forestalled had the drivers concerned taken the trouble to read the message of tlie instrument dials.

A car will run a surprising number of miles after the oil pump ceases work, before that horrible clatter and thumping beneath the bonnet tell the owner that about the very worst thing that can happen to an engine has happened. At any time during that period the switching off of the engine would have meant the difference between repairs to the oil pump, a comparatively simple and inexpensive matter, and new bearings, together perhaps with refacing of the crankshaft, a most expensive procedure. These instruments are put into a car for a very definite purpose, and, because of the design of modern cars, they are the only things to-day which warn the driver of impending trouble. Not that trouble is of frequent occurrence, but uo mechanical contrivance is perfect, and some mishap may occur at any time. AVOID OVERHEATING.

Suppose a motorist owns a car which uses so little water that he gradually forms the habit of not looking at the radiator level more often than once in two weeks. There are many such cars. Suppose he also never looks at the water pump—and how many motorists do?-—and the gland packing of this, gradually wearing in service, allows some of the water to escape till it reaches such a low level that the engine boils.

In most modern cars, the radiator filler cap is beneath the bonnet, so that the driver will not see the steam coming from it as lie- would in one of tlie old models. Unless he notices the warning given by the radiator thermometer on tlie instrument board, tlie next thing he will hear is the knocking 'of an overheated engine. The same thing applies to the generator. The ammeter is the only thing which will tell him whether the generator has ceased to charge or whether seme sort-circuit in the wiring system, carrying with it the danger of fire, has developed. Possibly, the need for glancing at tlie speedometer frequently, because of the 30 miles per hour speed limit, will prove a blessing to many owners. In doing this they cannot help but see the other instruments as well. But the instruments must be read intelligently. On rare occasions, one or two of them can be quite misleading. If, for instance, the electrical system is fitted with a voltage regulator system instead of the old third brush method of maintaining the charging rate at a constant figure, irrespective of battery condition, it will be possible for the. owner to receive quite a fright ou a long run when he notices the ammeter needle pointing steadily to tlie zero 'mark.—This niay indicate trouble, but it may not, because if the battery, is fully charged, the generator stops charging. An easy method of finding out whether this is the explanation is to switch off, use the self starter, thus putting a fairly heavy drain on the battery, and then notice whether the ammeter again registers some charge. If it does, then there is nothing wrong. Again, when an engine is switched off, the hottest portion of the cooling water will rise to the top of tlie radiator, and stay there. As the thermometer unit is inserted here, the dashboard gauge will register a higher temperature until the engine cools off or until it is started again, a perfectly normal state of affairs. Immediately ail engine is started from cold, the oil gauge will show a higher pressure than is normal until the correct operating heat has been attained, and the oil lias thinned to its ordinary consistency. If these peculiarities are borne in mind, the instruments will always give a very accurate idea of the state of the engine and its auxiliaries. GERMAN CAR PRODUCTION. The chief motor producing countries like America, Britain, and France arc beginning to realise that there is a new challenger in the field. To-day, Germany is second only to ’the U.S.A. in the production of new cars, while her supremacy in racing car design seems to indicate a possible leadership in the design of touring cars. These facts may come as a surprise to many people, but it must not be forgotten that in Germany there are no taxes on new cars, while the bulk of the output is of the Hitler inspired Volkswagen, or people’s car, a very low priced model. It is the German Government’s policy to make the people motor minded, and it is certainly succeeding. TYRE PRESSURES ON TOUR. A peculiarity of modern low-pressure tyres is that they lose their tension much more quickly than the old highpressure type. This applies particularly when on tour, where the constant pounding of the car over roads varying from good to indifferent at fairly high speeds seems to drive the air out of the tubes with quite astonishing rate. After a recent run covering 400 miles, one motorist was surprised to discover that his tyres had dropped from 301 b pressure to 251 b. If such a distance is covered on a hot summer’s day, it may be found that the drop in pressure is more than compensated for by the expansion of the air within the tyres, as a result of the heat of the day. DOG BARK HORN. A visitor recently back from America, brings the story of a motor horn, evolved originally as a novelty device, which barks like a dog. It is said that this horn has proved its usefulness in portions of the United States where drivers have to contend with tlie straying stock nuisance. Animals which take litle or no notice of the loudest type of normal horn scatter when the mechanical dog barks at them. There are many motorists in this country who would appreciate such a contrivance, since the straying stock nuisance shows no signs of abatement, but it is doubtful whether the authorities would approve suh a horn as a ‘.‘warning device.”