Cycling & Motor Notes

Otago Witness, Issue 3335, 13 February 1918, Page 44

Cycling & Motor Notes

BY DEMON

Mr J. B. Moody, while driving in his motor oar at Day's Bay, pulled off the road on to the beach, turned his car seawards, and went in for a swim. A policeman noticed'the car, which carried neither headlights nor tail-light, and Mr Moody was charged in the Magistrate's Court last week, beiore Mr S. E. McCarthy, S.M., with ' not having lights on his motor car showing in the direction in which he was going. Mr A. W. Blair, who appeared for defendant, explained the position of the motor car, and remarked that it must be obvious that the defendant did not intend to drive hie car into the sea. The car was not in anybody's way, and was well off the road. The case was dismissed. The interest of motorists throughout Victoria is being sought for in connection with a "Great Ocean road" from Barwon Heads (in the Geelong district) around Cape Otway to Warrnambool, a distance of about 100 miles, at an estimated cost of £150,000. The proposed highway is to be regarded as a memorial to Victorian soldiers fallen in the great war, while the work of constructing it is to be carried out by returned soldiers. Such, however, is the project emanating from the Western district, whore meetings concerning it are now being held. It is expected that the money required to build it will be given as donations from those interested in providing such a memorial, from those whose properties will be- benefited, from motorists, who will bo enabled to tour the finest ocean road in tho world," and also from other tourists and from business and commercial men who appreciate the value of opening tip of land which will grow almost anything.Leather is too expensive nowadays to be neglected. A little care and thoUjght expended on the upholstery of one's car will lengthen its life tremendously. The time spent in protecting it will pay good dividends in lengthened service and improved appearance. If tho leather gets wet, wipe it off when you come into the garage. If you stop with the top down, try to pick a shady spot. Heat and moisture are the enemies of leather. Oil is its life. As the leather dries out do not wait for it to crack open, but give it a coat of cushion dressing, or rub linseed oil into it. A new feature in English motor car bodywork design is a single door 29in wide, giving access to the front and rear seats. The idea is carried out by having a 7in section of the front seat attached to tho inner side of the door. When open it leaves a 7iin wide ciitranco at its narrowest point, and tho passage way to tho rear seat is lOin wide. Tho fixed part of tho front seat is Wm wide. ——An idea of how the petrol shortage in England is forcing motorists 'to the use of coal gas as a substitute can bo gathered from the fact that one of the big makers of gas containers in England had nearly 8000 orders in hand when tho last mail left. Tho use of coal gas is now threatening to assume such proportions that in eomo quarters fear is expressed that oven this substitute may bo "limited" by the Government. From tho Kunstoffe, a German paper, comes word that a good deal of attention is being given at the moment to various forms of animal, plant, and mineral substances for tho manufacture of tyres. In place of rubber, flax and hemp are being used. These are soaked in rubber, pariffin wax, or colluloid. Tyres are also made of a series of layers of calico in rubber, or of strips of leather specially treated. In place of plant fibres _ mineral substances are also in uso. For instance, asbestos, which is mixed at a certain heat with balata rubber. From tho same source

it is stated that air tubes for tyres are being made in Switzerland from Japanese silk paper soaked in a form of wax. - A woman driver attached to the Royal Flying Corps was recently summoned in a North London Police Court for exceeding the speed limit by eight miles an hour. The prosecution said that she was not provided with a permit to exceed the speed limit. The Commanding Officer of the Royal Flying Corps, who appeared on her behalf, said she was engaged upon important Government work, and ho had power to grant her a permit; but ho had made it a practice to impress upon all the drivers to keep -within the speed limit, and ho gave such permission in very exceptional oases only. The magistrate said that, in his experience, drivers of military cars are perpetually exceeding the speed limit, and fined .the defendant 20s. Dr Agnes Bennett, who has been in charge of one of the Scottish Women's Hospital Units in Macedonia, recently re turned to Sydney (her homo) on sick ,o -»'"0.

In the course of an address at the Sydney Women's Club she said that the ambulances which formed part of 'the unit were all driven by women. STheir pluck and endurance were, Dr Bennett says, beyond praise. When the bad roads become actually impassable, and it seemed that_ the wounded would have to perish unaided, these girls formed working parties and actually remade a section of the road, and then drove their ambulances across i't.

—— Many fluids for removing carbon from the cylinders of petrol engines have been placed on" the market, and they would be comparatively satisfactory if they could be made to operate as they are intended. To use them, they must remain in contact with .-the carbon for some littletime in order to soften it, so that it can be blown out by operating the engine; but to do this the space between the piston head and the cylinder* ! head must be completely Tilled, and in a dirty engine tho piston rings and valves are not tight enough to retain the liquid in contact with both of those surfaces very long. Consequently, although the piston head may get a sufficient treatment, the cylinder head, where the principal trouble Usually exists, does not get its share. Most of these liquids are composed largely of acetous; but wood alcohol, applied in the same way, produces fairly good results if put into a warm engine and left over night. *ln either case the liquid • that leaks past the piston rings finds its way into the crank chamber, and so contaminates the oil that it must be entirely removed and a fresh supply poured in after every treatment with the decarboniser. Another point should also,be kept in mind, and that is that, although the head of the piston may be well cleaned, it is impossible to properly clean £he piston rings by this treatment, for while the carbon around and under them may become softened, the liquid does not dissolve the carbon, and consequently the condition of 'the lings is not improved. Burring out the carbon with a blowpipe will clean the upper part of the cylinder and the piston head; but this process cannot clean the rings, and when an engine requires decarbonising the rings are usually in a condition tha't requires attention. There is not much doubt that a good deal of the voetuo of the American car in England is due to tho extra refinements which the long-sighted _ American manufacturer has embodied in his designs, but which his British competitor has either listed as "extras" or ignored altogether. It is a fact that we move slowly in these matters, and are apt to leave a thing undone until compelled to it by the pressing demand of the public rather than to do it first, and then proceed to educate the publio into a liking for it. Take, for example, electric lighting for the car. Up to the time of the outbreak of the war it wa3 greatly the exception for the British car to be listed with a dynamo-lighting plant included in tho price. Yet few American cars were not so equipped. And there is not the least question but that the motorist who had mado up his mind to acquire a new car had equally determined that it must have electric light. After tho war wo shall sec practically every British car listed with a dynamo set through the American educational campaign having created the demand. .

The " self-starter " originally came to us from America, and was principally # developed there. Almost every American vehicle which sells at anything over £2OO is equipped with an electric engine-starter. All other things being equal, no one who has owned and driven a car in which tho engine can bo started from the driving seat bv the mere pressure of a pedal will go back to tho crude method of_ cranking by hand to get the motor running. Although this is so obvious as almost to be a truism,I think I am right in saying that before the war there was but one British car—< and that one of the highest price—in which, the electrio engine-starter was listed as an absolutely standard fitting. _ There were others, of course, in which it could bo had as an extra, and a costly extra at that. A novel motor engine sparking plug has been marketed in America. It ia called the push-clean spark plug, and it cleans itself. All that is necessary is to push the button on tho top of the plug. The push cleans the porcelain, the electxode, and scrapes tho side wires. A patented cleaning bridge on the bottom of the shell

protects the sparking points and porcelain, besides making it possiblo to clean the plugs ■while the engine is running, if so desired. Carbon and oil are removed from the porcelain by tho cuttere, tho points of tho side wires aro cleaned and polished automatically, while oil and carbon aro wiped off the centre electrode by the bridge during tho operation, which, it is said, takes not **moro than two seconds. Now that tho motor side car combination is becoming so popular, it behoves the' trade and riders to pay a little more attention to the proper staying of the side car attachment. One has only to glance at tho rear of machines as they pass along the streets to note that in the majority of oases the back wheels aro out of alignment, in some cases almost to an alarming degree. AnyoTJe with any knowledge of mechanics knows what this means in additional stress on tho outfit. The greatest sufferer, however, is the tyro, for it means that there is a continual lateral sawing action at tho point of contact with roadsurface. This friction means ruination to tife' best tyres ever made. Needless- to say, in most instances the tyros receive the blamo for ngt standing up to their work, whereas in reality faulty bracing of the outfit is thd cause of the trouble. Nothing wears rubber quicker than the rasping action of a wheel which is running out of alignment. The matter is an important one to the trade and to motor cyclists themselves, and it is a subject that certainly requires more attention than it is ■getting. •