Cars Are Easier To Attend To Now

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19130, 26 September 1936, Page 9

Cars Are Easier To Attend To Now

AXE of the most, noticeable changes in car design in the last four or five years has been in th v e direction of making cars easier to attend to. The average motorist is apt to take these improvements as a matter of course. Many drivers will remember the bad old days when, to wash a car was an afternoon's job, and to grease if another half-day's work. There can be no doubt of the ease with which the modern body ran be kept clean. The fairings ~over the dumb irons at front and back, consisting of smooth curves, instead of that collection of nooks and crannies found in past models, can be cleaned with almost one sweep of a wet cloth, while skirled mudguards make if necessary to clean their undersides much Jess frequently than in tire past.

Simplifying Lubrication. There is a noticeable tendency, too, to simplify chassis lubrication, and some of the latest devices have a reservoir connected by piping to the main chassis bearings, which pumps oil to them under the influence of the car's motion on the road, chassis lubrication thus being completely automatic., and all the owner has to d.o is to replenish the reservoir at appropriate times. In other cases, the greasing nipples are grouped together, pipe lines leading from them to the various bearings, and they can bo greased rapidly by simply running over them Willi lite gun. There is no need to crawl under the car.

The problem of jacking the car for making tyre changes has also received attention, and it. is the exception rather than the rule today to find a ear in which some provision has not been made to simplify this task, either by fitting built-in hydraulic jacks, permanently attached to the axles, or by the fitting of special brackets at the ends of the springs under which a special jack can be placed without the operator even having to kneel.

Improvements to Wheels. Reverting to the question of cleaning a car, there is possibly not one motorist in a hundred who does not bless the designer responsible for making popular the pressed steel wheel. ! which, in cars of family type at least, ! has replaced almost entirely the wire .wheel. Without question, the wire j wheel is the most handsome type ever designed, but keeping it clean was an extraordinarily troublesome job, and although it possesses certain unique i features which make it a. very desirable type for sports and racing cars, ;it is an unsuitable type to fit to the .' ordinary touring car.