MOTOR AND CYCLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 September 1926, Page 6

MOTOR AND CYCLE.

HOLIDAY MOTORING. PH KPA RATION AND USE. (By H. Massac Bulat. -Copyright.) Before setting out on a motoring holiday one should see to it that everything in couneetiort with the car is in order. Batteries should he proved to be charged fully, because in places garage and repair facilities are of the crudest, and resources are overtaxed hopelessly, so that none but the roughest and most urgent work can be undertaken by the local staff. All electrical connections should be gone over, not for proof -of shorts merely, but to detect where they are likely to occur. The stitch in time principle may be applied by wrapping any slightly chafed part in insulating tape. The chassis should receive attention next. One could almost wish that every motorist who takes the road had himself witnessed an accident due to tie breaking of a propeller shaft owing to neglected lubrication. I do not know an uglier type of accident than one which conies through a broken propeller shaft. The universal joint is always the hardest worked moving part of a ear. Often it is the most absolutely neglected as far as maintenance by process of mere periodical lubrication is concerned. Next in importance I regard the steering gear. Again many owners who will give spring shackles periodical lubrication will be neglectful; yet steering gear details arc vastly more important and are liable to trouble when starved of lubricant. Admittedly overmuch car "designing makes it relatively difficult to giva adequate lubrication to the steering gear. Every year I come across several instances of machines smashed on the road wherein that has been the cause of failure LUBRICATION AND THE NEW OWNER. Naturally many recruits to the ranks of car owners are fearful lest some important part of their machine, which to them is more or less a mystery, should go wrong through lack of lubricant. Consequently I have seen a number of engines fouled through over-lubrication by their too conscientious owners; even as you sometimes find them thinking that a magneto, the lubricating apertures of which look relatively dry, must therefore need a drop of oil—with the inevitable result that they have magneto failures merely through oil getting on parts of the machine where it should never be. Likewise oil levels in back axles are very often difficult things to examine, due generally to air-locks. Of course, the new owner does not want a broken back axle through neglect of lubrication.. The experience of some manufacturers reveals that about one new owner in a thousand neglects to lubricate the back axle for the first thousand miles or'so, and that it has been driven for several hundreds , of miles without any lubricant. That is bound to lead to a break."' But over-lubrication is also undesirable, and may lead to actual disaster on the roaff. if too much oil is inserted into a back axle, it must .find a vent somewhere; when, the ear begins to move all the lubricant gets warm, the air in the back axle begins to expand through becoming hot, and so forth. Therefore the easiest means is for the lubricant to force itself through the washers at either end of the axle sleeve whereby it is held within the axle proper. Once it gets through these washers its only escape is by flooding the brakes. A driver may have no warning of this and finds suddenly, when he wants to apply the brakes in an emergency, that they have no power to retard the ear because they are smothered in lubricating oil. Therefore never oil your back axle above the level indicated by the instruction book. Of lubrication troubles in general it may be stated that they have bean recast entirely since the war, due to the fact that even up to about the campaign’s end the general idea was to employ a thiekisli lubricant for axles and so forth, whereas now the lubricating power of an oil is no longer determined by its thickness, but by quite other qualities. THOUGHTS IN SEASON. Never has the demand for the delivery of new cars against the holiday season in Great Britain been so great as at the moment. We are approaching the end of the motor" manufacturing and trading year, since the last deliveries of 1(126 type cars will be demanded at the end of next month by buyers who have postponed their holiday-making until September. In the second week of October all the motor manufacturers of the world who hope to sell their wares on the British market will be showing their 1927 season types at Olympia, where there will- be held the greatest car exhibition yet organised. Meantime, though we are taking new cars into use in these islands to the number of well over four score thousand a year,, the statistics of registration reveal clearly that the owners of such new ears do not represent anything like the majority of private passenger-ear users. For one thing, designers and manufacturers do themselves such credit that many vehicles will be on the roads these holidays Which are in their “umpteenth” year of service. But when you see an old ear on the road it does not follow that it is in the hands of an experienced driver. Nor does the coming into view of a new car necessarily indicate that it is in the hands of a novice. There are new drivers of old care, and old drivers of new ears, in great numbers. It very greatly concerns us to recognise this fact in the holiday season, particularly when, youth is abroad in its jubilant spirit, and with all its handicap, from the point of view of safety, of having bad no personal experience of the disasters that come through overconfidence, bad judgment, and taking risks in general. Never was there a time when the demand for proceeding on the lines of safety first so great as obtains to-day. It matters not that two years ago the Safety First Council issued an admirable series of regulations to which, for the most, part, the Press of the country gave a wide measure of publicity. Memories are short, and the rate of recruiting novices to motor driving is amazingly rapid. Therefore we need another campaign on the subject of how to proceed, safely in regard to driving. THE TRANSITION STAGE IN BRAKES. As always, motoring is in a transition state. Indeed, it will never emerge from that state within any period which is possible for man to foretell, because, happily, there is no known limit to scientific and mechaniaal progress. But the particular . stage -of

transition we are negotiating at the moment concerns brakes. Some cars have them to all four wheels; others have them to two wheels only. Some cars have brakes, whether to two or four wheels, that are very powerful; others have brakes that are very inefficient. Therefore, whenever in the course of holiday touring one travels on roads thronged with traffic, particularly in the guise of passenger carrying vehicles, nothing can be more dangerous or undesirable than for the individual driver to proceed as though his brakes were akin to those on other machines. This remark applies both ways. Maybe no brakes are more powerful than those of the given motor vehicle that is following; or maybe none less efficient. In either ease it is plain that one should drive ever mindful of this fact if one is to avoid running into, or being run into by, another vehicle. Likewise, in this relatively early stage of front wheel brakes, let no man imagine that nothing can go wrong with that mechanism. The motoring world has not taken front wheel brakes into general use sufficiently long for us to be able to form any final opinion on that subject in the light of actual facts. On the contrary, from a purely mechanical point of view we have much evidence of the fact that the vast majority of front wheel braking systems standardised to date are relatively unsatisfactory, and are not to be recommended from the showing of actual experimental experience to date.. We are at too early a stage to be able to make a cheap, or even a simple, front wheel brake indefinitely to be absolutely satisfactory in the hands of the general public. It must be had in mind that there has been Overmuch neglect of brake conditions by car-owners in general since the inception of motoring. As long as this is confined to brakes on the rear wheels it matters relatively little because, when the driver becomes aware of the given fault in a more or less gradual fashion, he begins to realise that he has to drive accordingly until the brakes are put into condition again. But when a brake on a front wheel gets out of adjustment, or otherwise does not function strictly in accordance with the intentions of "the designer, the problem is different and much more grave. SELECTING A CAR. A VERITABLE PROBLEM. FACTORS TO CONSIDER. Even to an experienced motorist, the choice of a new car is a matter of considerable perplexity. tn the ease of an absolute novice, selection becomes a veritable problem. Whes setting about selecting hie car, the beginner often starts by making inquiries from friends who already possess ears. This is quite a natural thing to do, but it should be borne in mind that friends are apt to have extreme views regarding the cars they own. It 'frequently occurs that the same make and model of car is described in widely different terms by different owners, and the novice finds himself in a quandary. Temperamental variations in owners should not be mistaken for variations in mechanical performances. There are many instances where in the hands of one owner a ear will bchave—itself admirably, while a .similar car eared for and driven by another individual spends considerable time in the repair shop. So, in choosing a car, it is important to eliminate the unstable human factor and judge a vehicle on its own merits, bearing in mind the treatment and use it is to receive. In other words, the best ear in the world (if such a vehicle really exists) may « be “good” or “bad,” dependent upon the temperament of the driver. The majority of cars on the market represent value for money. Competition, sees t° this. All makes and types have their specific purposes, and with ordinary care will give satisfaction. From the luxury limousine of divan-like comfort to the light, racy sports model, with its singular appeal to youth, there is a gamut of types from which a prospective owner would have little difficulty in making a selection were it not for price considerations. At least, it would seem so. Actually, the man who is in the position of being able to purchase regardless of price is confronted with the same problems as the intending buyer of a ear in, say, the £4OO class. This is intended to emphasise that the advice of motoring friends should be regarded only as a useful and not the principal aid in making a selection of a new ear. Important factors. are the class of work the ear is required for, the nature of roads the car will be mostly driven over, the load to be usually carried, and, by uo means least, the cost of fuel upkeep. The difference between eighteen to twenty miles a. gallon of petrol and twenty-five to thirty ■ miles per gallon amounts to a considerable sum at the end of 1’5,000 miles of travel. Petrol is the largest individual item of expense in running a car. 120 MOTOR CARS A DAV. MR. EDSEL FORD’S PLAN. GOOD TRADE OMI'N?. London, April 30. Extensive developments of the Ford motor car industry on the Dagenham flats of Essex, with employment for 12,000 men and an output of 120 motor cars a day that will supply many European countries, were foreshadowed by Mr. Edsel Ford, son of Mr. Henry Ford, writes a Daily Express representative yesterday. “I have been greatly impressed since I have been over here with the British trade outlook,” said Mr. Ford. “When I left the States my associates felt there must be a turn for the better in British trade before we started cur works at Dagenham on the site that we purchased two years ago. They wanted to see more business in sight. The decrease in your latest unemployment returns is a'hopeful sign, and I shall go back to America with the idea of encouraging an early start at Dagenham.” Mr. Edsel Ford, who is reputed to be worth £200,000,000 and to be the second richest man in the world, is a slim young man, and is clean-shaven and his somewhat angular face gives him an almost boyish appearance. He paid a fine tribute to the British workman. EFFICIENT WORKMEN. “I have been to See our Manchester works,” he said. “It is not what you would call, quite an up-to-date plant,

and in this respect is not to be compared with our works at Detroit, but the workmen at Manchester, despite the handicap, is turning out as good and efficient work as is being done by us in America.

“I am immensely pleased with the Dagenham site. It is the first time I have seen it. We have 300 acres of good flat land, that has wonderful facilities for shipping. “Our trade expansion here will depend on taxation. I find on all lands that this is the bugbear. “I believe that in America we. have not only reached, but have slightly passed, saturation point so far as motor care are concerned, because only about 25 per cent, of the new motor cars now being turned, out go to people who have not had one before.”