MOTORING NOTES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4043, 4 May 1938, Page 5

MOTORING NOTES

MINOR RATTLES. OWNERS’ PROBLEMS. COACHWORK FAULTS. Any owner of a motor car is quite familiar with those rattles and squeaks which eventually develop in the coachwork and chassis of even the best car on our roads, and, if he is at all keen on motoring and likes driving to be unaccompanied by such noises, knows full well the irritation and annoyance which they arouse. To find the cause of them, however, is a task of the first magnitude. Coachwork noises in particular can be most elusive, and more than frequently an owner gives up the search for a particularly worrying squeak in disgust. Unfortunately, such noises often are caused through a small amount of movement between two frame members of a body that is composed of wood and steel and, as the two erring members are invariably hidden beneath the panels and upholstery, the cure of the trouble is beyond the capabilities of the owner himself, and even when successfully tackled by a skilled coachbuilder is apt to be rather expensive, because of the amount of material which first has to removed in order to get at the seat of the trouble. But not all coachwork comes into this category. Often they can be cured quite simply, and it is only a matter of pursuing- the problem in a systematic manner to restore the car to its original state of reasonable quietness. Coachwork Bolts. The first thing which any owner must do when faced with an elusive noise of this sort is to go carefully over all the body holding down bolts, because these have a very bad habit of loosening in service, and if they do, the body will move about on the chassis sufficiently to cause the most elusive noises. This applies whether the body is bolted directly to the chassis or on to those rubber insulated outriggers which are found on some modern cars, because it does not matter what the principle involved happens to be, movement between coachwork and chassis of t’-is sort always leads to trouble. But if these bolts are found to be tight or are tightened as necessary, and the noise still persists, then the owner has the satisfaction of knowing that at least the difficulty is not in this source, and other parts of the coachwork can be examined. For very obvious reasons, it is possible that the cause of most body noises is the doors. It is not generally known that the door latches of most steel bodies are fastened by metal thread screws and nuts into slots in the door pillars, so that if the screws are loosened the latches can be moved and retightened. This makes the doors fit more tightly into place and the movement which causes the sqeaks is eliminated. In composite bodies, these latches are fastened in place by wood screws, and the same procedure cannot be followed, but if the latches are obviously worn sufficiently to produce the squeak complained of, they are quite cheaply replaced. Alternatively, it is often quite simple to pack the latches with strip metal, so that the doors will close tightly enough to prohibit that movement which causes the troubles. Elusive Chassis Noise. Sometimes, of course, the noise complained of does not come from the coachwork at all, but from the chassis. The recent experience of a motorist may throw some light on the troubles of other people. In this case, there was a very bad squeak from the springs of a car which had covered about 15,000 miles. Oiling the leaves of the springs and the shackles produced no cure, and the matter remained a mystery until the car was put on a hoist for other work. In prowling about beneath the car in a search for unsuspected troubles the owner shook the car up and down, and traced the noise to the forward bolt of one rear spring. This was held in place in a rubber bushing, a very common practice today because of the inaccessibility of this part for ordinary greasing, and it was found that the spring had movement on the steel shell surrounding the bushing, when it should have been a tight fit. Replacement of the bushing effected a complete cure.

It is possible, however, for springs to squeak between their leaves, and if a car is chronically bad in this regard some relief is to be had by fitting little rubber pads between the ends of each leaf and the leaf next above it. These pads are cut from the old inner tube and, although they do not last more than a few months, do form an effective cure when interleaf lubrication does not achieve the desired results. It is also possible for squeaks to develop in the rubber bushings fitted in the arms of shock absorbers. Hydraulic brake oil spread over these will stop the trouble.