NOTES

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19959, 17 November 1934, Page 10

NOTES

When lifting the bonnet to examine the engine whilst it is running, never lean over the engine when you are wearing a scarf. If the scarf is loosely tied, the ends may easily drop forward and catch in the fan, or even in the flywheel. Serious accidents have occurred as a result of such carelessness. Sometimes a motor car engine will not idle properly, even though the ignition system and carburettor have been checked and the spark plugs cleaned and adjusted. In such a case it may be found that the timing chain has become so badly worn that the camshaft can rock two or three teeth on the chain without jumping completely out of time with the crankshaft. The fitting of a new chain will then cure the trouble. Motorists who intend driving in London’s silence zone would be well advised to fit a switch in the horn circuit so that the press button can be made inoperative (states the Motor). Unless they take some such measures they will find it almost impossible to avoid intinctive sounding of the horn. A good indicator of the trade situation in Sweden is the number of motor-cars registered. The number of passenger cars and motor lorries and vans registered m the first half of this year was no fewer than 7717 (5150 passenger cars and 2567 lorries), an increase of nearly 100 per cent compared with the first half of 1933. A mouse, a beetle, and a cigarette end have been quoted in England as the respective causes of three motor accidents during Police Court proceedings. In one case it was stated that a mouse jumped on to the shoulder of the driver of a motor-car, and the shock caused him to collide with a lamp post. In another case it was related that when a man and his wife were motoring the wife felt a beetle crawling up her leg. Her husband, who was driving, tried to knock it off, but it reappeared. He was pulling up when his rear wheel caught a tafidem cycle, which was upset. A third motorist said that when he threw a lighted cigarette out of the window of his car the wind blew it back. Without stopping, he picked it up, and his car ran into a lamp post.