CYCLING & MOTOR NOTES

Otago Witness, Issue 3613, 12 June 1923, Page 55

CYCLING & MOTOR NOTES

BY

"DEMON.”

- Some motor-horns (or similar iristroinonts) are like sirens—some are like a peal of bells, some are like a trumpet, and others (plenty, alas!} make an uproar like the \vorr>t noise produced by theworstinsi.ru-

ment of tho world’s worst jass orchestra. It is pleasing, I here fore, to have news of the manufacture of a two-tone horn, which enables a motorist to be polite or rude, according to circumstances, ’the horn can make a gentle request to a pedestrian or a carter to give heed to the car, and, ; f this comparatively soft note is not heard or is ignored, the instrument can send out an ear-piercing screech. - A demand is setting in for wire wheels suitable for small cars. Hitherto the use of detachable wire wheels has been mainly confined to the more expensive and higher powered cars, largely on account of their extra cost, but there is no doubt that many experienced motorists appreciate the inherent strength combined with lightness of the modern type of wire wheel. ——• Last year about 8000 new cars were registered in New South Wales. It is

estimated that 11,000 new cars will be registered this year. The weekly average of licenses for new cars is nearly 250, and the tendency is towards rapid increases in the weekly applications for new licenses.

The great motor cycle contest of the year in England is the Tourist Trophy event, decided over a mountainous course on the Isle of Man. The races that will be decided this year are the Junior on June 11, the L'gln-weight and Sidecar Race two days later, and the Senior event on June 15. Rig entries were received; 73 riders nominating for the Junior, 38 in the light-weight class, 47 in the Senior, and 12 in the Sidecar Race.

FORCED INDUCTION

An interesting innovation has been adopted by one of the leading car manufacturers of Germany, a special fitment, known as a supercharger, being attached to the engine, whereby forced induction of petrol gas to the cylinders is provided for. During the war it is known that the Germans were using this system with success on some of their aeroplanes, but details have hitherto been suppressed. Demonstrations carried out on 15 rook lands Track, England, proved that increased power undoubtedly followed the application of forced induction, and there appears little doubt that there is a big future for this system of feeding petrol engines.

PETROL FROM COAL

The discovery is reported of a process for producing petrol from coal. The report of the discovery was recently read by Dr F. Bergius to the Birmingham University Mining Society, and if the process is a commercial proposit’on then it should have an important bearing on New Zealand being able to supply its own oil fuel requirements. It: was stated that experiments wita this process have been successful at Mannheim, Germany, where a plant with a capacity of 60 tons per day lias been installed. The conversion of coal into petroleum is said to be achieved by introducing hydrogen into tho coal, thus completely changing its chemical character and converting about 90 per cent, of it into a liquid similar to fuel oil. This oil by another process is then transformed into light oils (20 par cent, by volume of the fuel oil treated), gasoline (40 per cent.), and Diesel engine oil (40 per cent.).

THE CLUTCH

There was a time in the development of tile motor vehicle whim the matter of Hie clutch engaged considerable attention. Clutch design proceeded through a range of stages, which included leather cones, multiple-discs, flat plates, expanding drums, and a variety of other mechanical an alignments -to get easy engagement and disengagement and an unslippable drive. Clutch troubles assailed the earlier users of cars to an extent which would not be tolerated bv motorists to-day, and instruction books devoted large space to the question of the care and adjustment and operation of the clutch. But such troubles are now things of the past. In the modern motor vehicle we have clutches cf varying types and all reliable and efficient, and the design such that they require remarkably little attention or adjustment. Herein is shown the gradual development of a simple appliance—crude at fu'st, wonderfully efficient now—-which has nevertheless, altered little in general arrangement, and certainly has not become complicated yet has apparently developed into a really satisfactory, trouble-free pair of the mechanical arrangement of the automobile vehicle.

In practice we find that the ease of gear changing has been enormously increased by the easier, simpler and sweeter working of the clutch. Pressures which were at one time necessary to declutch, are now seldom met with. The lightest pressure of the foot is now sufficient. Time was when declutching required such an effort that the use of the vehicle by the fair sex was much hampered on this account. With the advent of the woman driver lias also come the easier operation of the clutch, and no exertion is now required to effect the withdrawal.

Fierce clutches and slipping clutches are now rarely heard of. and the wearing out of clutch leathers—at one time a by no means uncommon experience—is seldom met with.

Indeed it. may be said that the clutch to-day is one of the simplest and most efficient, and trouble-free parts of the car mechanism, and in that respect cars are better than they were and more simple to handle by the novice and inexperienced.

LEVEL CROSSINGS AND ACCIDENTS.

An interesting paper on “Level Crossings” was read before the technological section of the Wellington Philosophical Society, by Mr G. W. Wyles, A.M.1.E.G., of the Railway Department. Mr Wyles said that the subject of level crossings and the prevention of accidents was of considerable importance at the present in several countries, particularly in New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and America. It was a problem which had occupied i Inattention of most people concerned with transportation for some considerable time, and, owing to the fact that part of the question involved dealing with the personal equation of a large proportion of the population of the country, it was one for which it was difficult to find a solution. Mr Wyles dealt at considerable length with general considerations, and described some of the methods of protection. The various means adopted for the protection of crossings were:—(l) The road signs; (2) the warning signal, audible-visual, or audible and visual; (3) the crossing-keeper; (4) gates or harriers, either worked by hand or machinery; (5) road bumps; (6) road barriers or circuitous routes op to the crossing; (7) the elimination of t?!b crossing by an over-bridge or subway. Mr Wyles said that it was plain, after taking into account the various methods that in populous districts, where bolh railway and road traffic was heavy, the bridge or subway was the only final solution from the saletv point, and this applied particularly to crossings in or adjacent to station yards, but here, again, the question of finance entered largely, as also the _ question of by whom the cost of conversion was to be borne. Warring devices had been installed in such cases, but they are unsatisfactory, anti frequently very costly, and were only a temporary expedient at best. In many of | these cases the bridge was the only solution.