MOTORING NOTES

Opunake Times, 28 February 1933, Page 4

MOTORING NOTES

THRILLS IN 1898. Motorists of thirty years ago could not complain of the monotony of what was anything but a reliable and speedy method of transport, as the initiation of the founder of what is to-day one of the leading American factories shows.

Buying his car at the factory he set out for his home, fiftythree miles away, starting early in the morning. Within the first nineteen miles he had been under the car four times to make repairs. A few miles later one of the tyres burst, and a mixture of glue and feathers, which was supposed to make tyres proof against punctures, enveloped him. Later on the driving chain broke, the radiator started to leak, and the brakes ceased operations.

On one occasion the car hit a rut and the tiller steering handle whipped round and knocked him out on the road, while other little troubles included ignition and lubrication failures. Eventually the new horseless carriage arrived home, at 4 o'clock the next morning, behind a plough horse, having completed all but the last five miles under its own power.

Next day the owner wrote to the manufacturer detailing his troubles, and saying that, although he considered the car a good one, he thought he could suggest a couple of improvements. The return mail brought a reply from the president of the company, concluding: “If you think you’re so clever, why don’t you build a car yourself?” The owner took this advice and made himself famous.

MIXTURE CONTROL. DAMAGE TKIIOUGH MISUSE Few drivers realise the amount of damage which is done to cylinders and sparking plugs by the misuse of the mixture control. The only reason for the existence of this control is to get.a temporarily rich mixture for starting while the cylinder blocks and induction pipe are still cold. Once the engine has started the control should be moved to weak as soon as the engine is warm.

It has been ascertained that cylinder wear amounts to as much as one-thousandth of an inch in every thousand miles driven when the mixture control is abused. As the clearance between the piston and the cylinder wall originally allowed by the makers is in the region of only four-thousandths of an inch, this clearance may very easily be trebled in less than one season’s running, and then oiling up of plugs, due to liquid oil passing into the combustion chamber, will be a probable result. Incidentally, when this happens the insulation of the plug, if made of mica, should not be cleaned with an abrasive material. The most desirable state for a mica plug is with the highest possible polish on the mica. In cases where the mica is corrugated to give greater resistance to soot and oil the edges of the corrugations arc, of course, sensitive, and should be treated with great respect. The only really safe way of cleaning a mica insulated plug is with a soft rag dipped in petrol. If the insulated centre is in a particularly bad state it should be steeped in petrol for an hour or two and then dried thoroughly before attempting to clean it.