Cycling and Motor Notes

Otago Witness, Issue 3348, 15 May 1918, Page 44

Cycling and Motor Notes

BY DEMON

Most motorists, especially motor cyclists, are familiar with that bell-like sound known as ••pinking"; the cause be.ng that when the temperature of the mixture is raised above a certain critical value the charge fires in a manner more nearly equivalent Do a detonation. 'lhis critical temperature is much lower for petrol than for uenzole, and if a little benzole is mixed witn petrol the pinking disappears. Petrol ignites spontaneously at 270 deg C. and benzole at SOOdeg 0. if the fuel be composed of four-iifths petrol and one-filth benzole there will be no pinking —in a clean engine, at least.

—— In the early days of motoring it was the fashion to appear in huge gauntlet gloves. Quite a small cuff, however, is sufficient to go over the coat sleeve, and even this is unsatisfactory in some conditions, for if one is walking about in heavy rain, apart from the car, the water runs straight down the sleeve into the cuff. Whatever gloves are used, the wrist should be well protected, for this' makes a considerable difference in the warmth to the hand, and a very comfortable pattern is that on which there is a knitted wool extension which can be tucked well up the sleeve. The overcoat should, df course, bo provided with either an internal wind cuff or a strap and button. Another useful garment which has a considerable effect on the warm of the hands is a long-sleeved cardigan jacket. One of the most annoying of minor troubles on a car (says a trade journal) is a leaky petrol tap. Whether this is due to leakage at the taper of the tap itself or at the connection with the tank it is always an awkward job for the ownerdriver. Often the tank has to be taken out and with it in many cases the dash and some of its fittings. As a result many owners run their cars with a perpetually moist top—a somewhat risky proceeding owing to its proximity to the exhaust —or smear it over at intervals with the stock prescription—soap This is doubly unsatisfactory, for its proximity to the engine soon causes the soap to dry and crack, and the wastage of petrol, unlike a carburettor leak, continues day and night. The remedy,, however, seems to be in the hands of the manufacturers, -who might fit a tap of the needle type.

Zealand during the past three months total 1171, or 13 per day, including Sundays, according to the Trade Review. These would occupy nearly 10,000 tons of the freight space which is so scarce, and the selling value here would run into over £300,000.

According to figures prepared by Mr H. Macintosh, motor inspector, the number of licensed horse cabs in Ohristchurch has decreased from 117 in 1900 to 38 in 1916. Since 1905 the number of taxi-cabs licensed has risen from 3 to 133 in 1916. bodies should consider to whom they shall grant motor car licenses during the period of the war," said Mr W. G. K. Kendrick, S.M., at the Magistrate's Court at Palmerston Noth. "Licenses should not be granted to men under 40. There is plenty of healthy work for these men in the country. Taxi-driving can be undertaken by men over 40."

A thousand cabs, the fleet of the British Motor Oab Company, have been withdrawn from the I/ondon streets owing to the Home Secretary's decision that he cannot grant the application of the company to fix the legal fare in'London at Is per mile.

Lieutenant Thurston, of the Royal Flying Corps, in a lecture at the Grafton Galleries in London, stated that flying created a feeling akin to home-sickness, one that would not be satisfied except by another trip into the sky. One soon became accustomed to the noise of the aeroplane engine, but never to the tremendous rush of the air. It was usual for the observer to kick the pilot when he wanted to communicate with him; but on one occasion when he (Lieutenant Thurston) was the observer his pilot was too far away to be kicked. Thereupon he tried a stick, but failed with that also, because ho was not strong enough to prevent the wind from bending the stick aside. The blast bent the airman's nose, turned up his oars, and moved the skin on the top of his head. It was even said among flying men that one who had thoughtlessly kept his mouth open while facing the wind was unable to shut it for some time. ——A friend of mine (writes Max Pemberton in the English Field) was in Southern America the other day, and was astonished to hoar that, of the motoring parties which had loft his hotel upon the previous Sxinda'y, no fewer than three had been held up and robbed. The police seem to think it quite an ordinary occurrence. The road, apparently, is barred by a substantial rope; or if that bo not handy, two gentlemen with guns post themselves in a convenient place and shoot the tyres of the approaching car. If tyre destruction bo not effective, they shoot the man driving the car, and then they sro for the pockets of the passengers. Occasionally a pitched battle results. Few American chauffeurs would travel without a revolver close to their hands, and if they are quick, they may down the lusty niggers who, in the south at any rate, are generally the perpetrators of these outrages. This gives a charm to touring which it certainly lacks in our more prosaic West, and it must recall those forerotten pleasures in which our ancestors indulged upon Finohley Common and Bagshot Heath. My informant confessed to mo that the good spirit in which these outrages were taken astonished him altogether; and it is very evident that the American who goes abroad for a Sabbath Day's ride is careful not to carry too many of this world's goods about him. When the war broke out in 1914. it put a summary end to a very interesting development of the "Raleigh Company, of Nottingham, which had prepared and was goinsr to show a small car, of which thoso in the know expected much. No more acute judges of the commercial value of such things probably could be found than Sir Frank Bowden and his flon Mr Harold Bowden, the proprietors, and experienced motorists both. Sir Frank was recently presented with his portrait in oils by his

2000 workmen to signalise his 70th birthday.

AXLE-FILLING MADE EASY. The gearbox of the average car (says an exchange) is provided with a large removable lid for filling the box with suitable lubricant; but in tho case of the back axle the operation of filling is more difficult, because it is frequently found that there is only a small opening, through which it is almost inmossible to forco grease. Not that wo advocate using grease in the back axle; but some axles are designed to use nothing else. In most cases, however, a non-fluid lubricant is employed, and in such cases a grease injector will be found useful. The appliance consists of a circular receptacle for the lubricant, which, bymoans of a suction and plunger pump, is fored from the main compartment through a flexible tube, provided with a nozzle at

the end, which can be introduced into a small aperture.

ALL-BRITTSH MAGNETOS.

The monopoly that waa being slowly exercised by Germany over the industries of other countries _ was _ revealed at the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, when it waa discovered that only one concern in Great Britain was building magnetos and turning out more than 100 a week 1 Germany practically commandeered the industry from this and other countries and established it at Stutgart. This was before 'the war. On the outbreak of war the shortage of magnetos and the doubtful efficiency of the limited number of machines being built in Britain acted like a cold douche on the authorities, who scoured the country for stocks of German or American magnetos, and, having exhausted the small available supply, endeavoured, with, grim determl-

nation, to set tho wheels of industry going and produco a home-made article from start to finish. The situation was desperate, for the whole question of transport and air offensive and defensive was at stake. At the outset difficulties overwhelmed the pioneers of the new magneto movement, for they were met with the cheerful news that Britain could not manufacture steels equal in quality to the German production—an assumption which, fortunately, proved to bo incorrect. Another difficulty was the production of tho insulated wire for the secondary winding. Tho efficiency of the German machine was never disputed when it came to a question of the type of machine wanted, and when the British Ignition Apparatus Association —a friendly combination of manufacturers banded together in order to supply the country with tho deficiency of magnetos —commenced operations, it took the German machine as a standard, copying it down to tho minutest detail, ' and testing each and every part by its individual introduction into the body of a machine otherwise entirely German. Success followed this tremendous scientific effort as a matter of course, and by tho end of 1917 tho British Ignition Apparatus Association had supplied some 300,000 magnetos for war purposes, and laid the foundation stone of a revived industry which, it can bo said with assurance, will never be monopolised by Germany again. It has even better than that, and future magnetos promise to bo sunerior to German makes.—Light Car.