NOTES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18635, 2 August 1930, Page 11

NOTES.

“Give us some Scotchmen’s gas,” the motorist said to the garage attendant. The latter understood immediately. He filled the radiator with water and then put free air in a couple of the tyres.

In Ontario last year motor-cycle registrations totalled 3541, an increase of 10.76 per cent, over the previous year; there is a general increase throughout the Dominion of Canada.

Alec Bennett, the famous T.T. rider, believes that the Tourist Trophy machine of the future will have a supercharged four-cylinder engine and a spring frame, and that it will be built on car lines.

An epidemic of snakes has broken out m the south-east corner of Essex. They have been seen wriggling across the arterial London to Southend road, and a garage hand has killed an adder over three feet long.

The action of the Duke of Devonshire in closing Hardwicke Park to visitors is only typical of what is happening throughout England. Landowners are becoming tired of playing host to motorists and trippers, whose gratitude is to make a bear garden of a beauty spot.

There are three deep hot-holes in the filling between the tram-rails at the junction of Great South and Manukau Roads. The pot-holes are causing inconvenience to road-users, particularly at night when they cannot readily be seen.

The storage battery is usually electrically connected to the frame of the car by a short piece of flexible cable. This is a very important ground connection and like all others, should be kept tight and free from corrosion. A loose or imperfect connection may affect only the unit itself, but a loose or imperfect battery ground connection will affect the entire electrical system.

Starting motors require momentarily, a considerable amount of current and will not operate efficiently if poor connections obstruct the flow of current. Burned out lamps, stalled engines and partially charged batteries are frequently the result of loose or broken ground connections. A simple inspection now and then will obviate such occurrences. ;

In high-speed work it is almost incredible how fast the piston of a motor-cycle engine travels. It has to stop and start in the opposite direction at the top and bottom of every stroke, and as fast engines “rev.” at as much as 6000 r.p.m. this little function may be performed 10,000 or 12,000 times per minute. It will thus be realised how necessary it is to pay due attention to any suspicion of a loose big end.

European tourists, who have had difficulties in procuring petrol in more or less remote places and paying for it in currencies with which they are not entirely familiar, will welcome the suggestion being made in European motoring circles for the internationalisation of a system of “benzine coupons,” now in use in several countries. If the proposal is accepted by the principal benzine companies, it will be possible for the traveller to stock up in London, Paris or any other large city with coupons good for fuel and oil at any of the fuel stations carrying the company’s products.