OIL AND TYRES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19803, 19 May 1934, Page 10

OIL AND TYRES

A DESTRUCTIVE AGENT Until a comparatively few years ago, oil was considered to be invariably destructive of rubber. Nothing, unless it was a very high temperature, caused the latter to deteriorate more rapidly,it was understood, and motorists were warned, for example, against allowing oil to come into contact with their tyres. But laterly rubber and oil appear to have become reconciled, and it might well be imagined, judging by the frequent and extensive use of rubber at m'any points of cars where oil or grease is bound to come into contact with it, that there is no need nowadays to worry about pools of oil on the garage floor. The fact remains, nevertheless, that oil may still be as harmful to rubber as ever it was said to be. Rubber as a raw material is one thing; “manufactured” rubber is another, usually with many entirely different characteristics. Moreover, there are innumerable grades oT manufactured rubber, some of them as different

as chalk and cheese. For that reason, it does not follow that, because on some cars the steering joints, universals, and possibly other parts have rubber casings to retain grease or oil, the tyres are similarly immune from deterioration due to contact with oil.

Research has enabled manufacturers of rubber goods to produce grades of rubber that are unharmed by oil, and has thus made possible the use of an elastic compound for such parts of cars as those mentioned. But these grades differ from that, or those, used for tyre treads, and the enmity between oil and the rubber of tyres has abated very little in comparison with the antagonism of ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.

Keep them apart, then, if tyre deterioration is to be avoided. If oil drips from the steering swivels on to the front tyres, for instance, when the oil-gun is used on the former it should be wiped off at once, particularly from the walls and the line of contact between cover and rim.