THE PETROL TRAIL

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 28, 30 January 1929, Page 3

THE PETROL TRAIL

MOTORS IKMB MOTORBHU QUTBQAFfO PERFORMANCES FJBS'i; UROSSIN& OE NjOitlU SEA Mr. Cyr;l J,. Hestcott, General Manager for. V. C, Wakefield and Company -Ltd. ; Australasia Jias received advice from London to the meet jthafci Captain, lioness iiorciewicJx, on on September 12 and isfch, piloting his. Ijlto-Quad engined boat "Stormcockj" crossed from Harwich io Middiewerk, near Qstend, in thirty hours., using Wakefield Castrol Motor Oil. "Mr Cyril L. Wescott, General Manager for C. 0. Wakefield and Company, Ltd., Australasia, has received advice from. London to the effect that the Hon. Mrs Victor Bruce crossed the English Channel from Dover to Calais in her "Castrol" lubricated Elt 0 Quad Engine boat "Mosquito." The time taken was 1 hour 47 minutes, which shows a record average speed of over 30j miles per hour for this particular route. THEFT OF CARS.

The offence of "unlawful conversion" is not in the English code, and when a car is taken by joy-riders and abandoned a, charge of theft is laid. Before unlawful conversion became an offence in New Zealand motorists had no redress. The English law is very deficient in tin's respect. A case occurred in Birmingham about three months' ago, in which two men were charged with stealing a car. The owner giving evidence said that lie left his car outside a club. When he came out the car was gone. Later ho saw it in a damaged condition : in a garage and two gallons of petrol had been consumed. The damage wag estimated at £2OO.

Another witness stated that he had seen the. car in collision with a tramcar, and in the car were the two men a£ccused. Both prisoners admitted being in. the ear, but declared their intention was only to J)are a "joy ride.." They wore found not guilty and discharged. CARRY A FIRE EXTINGUISHER. It is a very important precaution for motorist s to always carry an efficient fir.e extinguisher, properly charged. If the engine catches lire whilst under way on the; road, turn the petrol off if the tap is accessible, hut leave the, engine running. Motor spirit is highly inflammable, a backfire, a naked light, a burning match, a spark from; a pipe or cgarette, may start a conflagration even by contact with petrol vapour from a receptacle: some little distance away. If tiro occurs, smother if at once with a sack or cloth (ojbviously not oilsoaked), sand, earth, or, if available, with fire extinguisher. "Use of water may make matters worse. Don't allow old oil to accumulate, nor leave oil-soaked. rag s lying about. THE IMPORTANCE OF PAD TUBES. Not all motorists realise the importance of using only good conditional tubes in their covers. The length of life of a tube can only be ascertained by the tube, being run until it dies, and it will probably die ou tho road, causing considerable, inconvenience, and possibly expense — through damago to a cover. The appearance of a, cover will show when ib is neai'ing the end of its life, but tho tube is hidden and its condition cannot bo guaged unless the cover is removed. The trouble or expense involved in removal of a cover ly tube inspection is a s nothing compared wi.th tho inconvenience caused b> the death of an 6:cl t.nDi

It is false economy to use very oW tubes when fitting now covers. The lii'e of a tube depends considerably on its quality and. construction, and ' naturally longer life; and less troublemay ho anticipated when high grade I tubes are used. INGENIOUS DEVICE. TELLS AVERAGE SPEED. A demand was recently voiced in England foi; a speedometer wliicii would register the average speed at which the car lias covered a trip. Manufacturers of these, instruments replied that such speedometers had already been constructed, but that i.hey were difficult to keep within reasonable dimensions, and were so expensive as to make it very unlikely that many would ever bo sold. The latest, issue of the Autocar, however, contains a description of an instrument which has been invented and, according to the inventors, can be sold at the price of an ordinary speedometer which, will record distance covered, actual speed, and also averago speed in miles an hour. The instrument is of e a, practical size, j driven in the customary flexible shaft from the gearbox and is known as the averagemeter.

The principal on which the average -meter works i s on a tangent method, the pointer reading at an angle representing the average speed by an automatic calculation of the distance covered and the time taken, and all factors arq indicated by thq instrument correctly within .5 per. cent.

Tho instrument can be made, to indicate either the running or the total average,—that is> 2 the average speed, taking into account the'.time spent hour for a day's run would necessitate travelling at an exceedingly high speed, for long periods. A) device, is included in the design to prevent the instrument bejng damaged by over-running, so that even if a trix> did happened to exceed 320 miles in eight hours no harm would be done to the mechanism. The clock is unwound and the. pointer reset to zero by ono small knob cm the front of the instrument. The inventors of tin's ingenious averagemeter are Messrs. J. B. riakeborough and R. C. Byngj of Brighoiise, Yorkshire, England.