HELPFUL HINTS.

Putaruru Press, Volume V, Issue 175, 10 March 1927, Page 7

HELPFUL HINTS.

HOW TO REDUCE FUEL CONSUMPTION. First. Reduce as much as possible the unnecessary load your vehicle has Ito carry. Brakes that drag (as shown by their being hot after the car has been allowed to coast to a standstill), when motor is stiff (will not rock freely when cranked by hand), or undue friction in the running gear (as shown by the car being hard to push), all these consume power and have been known to raise petrol consumption almost 100 per cent. Second. Keep engine in good shape. Leaks past the piston, or y leaky valves, allow quite a large percentage of the usable power to esscape. Also, keep all cylinders firing. For this reason it is important that the electrodes of the spark plugs are kept clean and the correct distance ' apart. Third.—lnstall the? best carburettor and keep it properly adjusted. Fourth.—lt is unfortunate, but unavoidable, that a rich mixture must be used after starting until the mo-tor-warms up. Instead of making the carburettor adjustment permanently } rich to take care of this trouble, an } economical adjustment should be ! made with the motor warm, and the j dash control used to get a rich mixture during the Short while necessary. While the motor is cold the throttle should be opened no further than necessary, and the motor speed should . be kept up. In .very cold weather it 1 is a good practice to drive the first half mile on second gear in order to \vnrm up the motor quickly. Fifth. Utilise all possible means to keep the motor warm when in use.

A great part of the present day motor fuel cannot be vaporised into a firing mixture unless, the intake manifold is hot, and, everything that contributes to this condition will help the fuel, economy. Hot air- supply to the carburettor when called for, exhaust heated- intake manifold, radiator cover, or tliermostatic control of the circulating water, and keeping the temperature, of the engine above 140 deg. .Fahr., all these are vitally important. Sixth.—nA void unnecessary variation in,.jSpeed. Strong acceleration is often obtained by the use of an unduly rich mixture setting, apd any application of the brakes ,cut§ down momentum which the .petrol had to generate.