The Motor World

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17169, 12 October 1923, Page 11

The Motor World

NOTES AND NEWS BY " RADIATOR

A question which must often crop up in the average motorist’s mind, and one to which a satisfactory answer is sel dom forthcoming, is the eventual destination of all the old cars. A worn out car (like a dead donkey) is a. thing that one sees very seldom. The war, of course, definitely destroyed thousands, and the dismembered bones of countless Fords are mouldering at this moment on the long trail from Basran to the Caspian Sea. With the return of peace the system of disposing of a worn-out car by driving it off the road and leaving it has fallen into disuse, and unless, like elephants, they stagger away to some secluded burial ground among the mountains, it is difficult to understand where the thousands of old cars all end up. Most motorists nowadays are alive to the importance of quality in the lubricating oil they use for the engines of their cars, but in the case of grease for lubricating the great majority are content to accept without question anything that their garage .supplies. But greases, like, oil., differ very widely in their qualities and characteristics, and every motorist will find it well worth, his while to make sure of obtaining the best possible. One of the chief drawbacks to grease lubrication is the tendency that many greases have of drying hard and solid, thus blocking the lubricating channels and preventing any lubricant from reaching the desired surfaces'. Some comparative tests of pressed steel wheels and wood wheels carried out in U.S.A. produced some interest ing results. The two types of wheel were. approximately of tbe same weight. One test consisted ot support ing the wheel horizontally by the rim and applying downward pressure to the hub. The pressed steel wheel withstood 41001 b before it became distorted, but it did not break. The wood wheel broke at 22001 b(1 ton) pressure. On applying a crushing test, the steel wheel bent at nine tons and the wood wheel was destroyed by six tons pressure. These were, of course, tests to dcstruc j tion, and the most severe working conJ ditions would not approximate thereto. The best oil for any engine should have a low factor of static friction. Tt should have a low cold test-—that is, it should remain fluid and not thicken even in the coldest weather. The more fluid the oil is the quicker it gets to work, a point that makes for easier starting in cold weather. It must stand high temperatures, for it has to lubricate the hot cylinder walls, and should do this without burning up too quickly and without losing any of its vital qualities of oiliness. And it should last for some time, too; with intelligent driving of the car the best lubricant will last, and all the Avbile it will be performing its function.

.Motor-cyclists are apt to look with ■ some disdain on anything which savours of the motorised bicycle, but there ars many people with no interest in motor cycles who would welcome some me chanical assistance for the pedal bicycles which they ride. With the rapid development of small capacity engines, many improved forms of motor assisted bicycles are coming on the market, and . once established they quickly gain j 1 popularity. j Interest is being taken by the Aus ; i tralian Government in the experiments ; of Captain C. M. Dyer with eucalyptus • oil as a motor fuel. He claims to = have established that eucalyptus oil car. » bo used in petrol engines with efficient 5. means of vaporisation. Tho only difliS cully is that it will not start an on 2 gine from cold without priming. On 5 tho other hand, the calorific value is m high. Tests made with cheap cars arc E reputed to have shown that a run on 5 petrol gave 24 miles to the gallon, Z on half eucalyptus oil 28 miles, and on 5 eucalyptus oil alone 36 miles. It is £ stated further that the oil will mix with £ petrol, benzol and alcohol, and that it « acts as a decarbonising agent, main f | tabling cylinder and pistons free from carbon. There are 179 of

eucalyptus in Australia. The oil yields : range from 0.021 b to 3*slb per 10001 b | of leaf treated. Distillation is a simple j process, requiring no skilled. labour. Tho main difficulty o 4 manufacture on a large scale would be to secure labour for gathering the leaves. Because flowing gasoline seems to cause static electricity to spark, a motorist when filling the tank of a car I should make sure that tho spout oi I nozzle is in contact with the metal of the opening of the tank into which the i gasoline, is poured. This simple pre- ; caution will prevent any electrical I spark jumping from metal to metal; in fact, short circuiting, as in ordinary electrical installations.

A mistake frequently made is in washing the tyres with a mixture of kerosene and water used for washing the running gear of a. car. This is ex i tromely harmful, as kerosene is one of j the, solvents of rubber, softening it and causing it to wear all the faster. Religious workers of Boston. M asset- j chusetts. have a. “ Little Church on Wheels.” Built- on a motor chassis, j the portable church, steeple and all, has a unique pulpit from which a gospel message will l>e preached on various street corners of the city. It is equip , ped with latest devices of science, including a radio receiving set and loud speaker. cast, sky and pouring rain, provides you with the opportunity of giving vour car that attention it so urgently calls for, writes “ R-C in the “ Manchester Guardian.” Its run-ning-in period is pretty nearly through, so far progressed at least that it is satisfactory motoring in tho sunny months that are to come. If the makers’ instructions are to he relied on. oil out of tho engine sump and put in new. AJI the greasers would be bettor for some attention; you know, even if von won’t admit it, that you have not yet touched the battery, neglect which by this time is bordering on folly, and then you wish to adjust the rake of the steering wheel. so that the two drivers may individually find it- more comfortable. That adjustment '.'.ill have ic. be a compromise, tor one driver is slim, the other has *‘huckth”—a dialect term which coroptohends some breadth and, well, perhaps rotundity. There is the further j factor that by going over the car in. i this mariner you. establish relations with it; useful relations. The more you know' the car as a machine the better it will serve you, and the better will you use it, thing.-, that arc of the essence of good motoring. So you decide upon a day in the garage—that shed which allows of rather less than two feet of room all round the machine, and contains, besides the car, the family bicycles, the lawn mower, odds and ends of gardening tools, and unclassified kit of all sorts. A brief preliminary survey, and you retire to don vour oldest clothes and a. long-discard-er hat —to the suppressed Amusement of the- family, it may he said ; but that survey has shown you that you will have to insert yourself somehow into the chassis as well as crawl under the. j machine. However, the skirt is made in great, heart. You have a feeling that you a.ro master of the machine and its intricacies.. The first thing you learn is that the term accessibility, which according to every maker and every agent is a. virtue of modern cars is a very elastic term. Accessibility in a ganuge well equipped with tools and staffed by experts who have eyes at their finger-ends (and finger-ends of tremendous persuasive power when it comes to dealing with nuts) is ono thing; accessibility to the amateur, lacking working space -and with but a normal tool-kit, has some relation to his skill as a contortionist. That steering column, for example; it is neatly bolted to the dashboard, ami any motor mechanic would alter the rake from the driver’s seat. But you i have difficulty in. getting your fingers

your fingers have neither strength nor vision. You jam your soft hat hard down, crawl along the floor on your back, your feet in the air over the seat, the spanners carefully arranged on your chest, your head resting on the accelerator pedal and buttressed as to jour left ear by the brake pedal. More or less comfortable, yon bring your shaving mirror into play no reflect- the light on that layout of nuts and the like, and once the position hag been thus surveyed tho rest is easy. The adjustment is made, the floorboard has been sawn out to allow for the drop in the column, it is replaced and screwed down ; the job is done. Accessible, certainly, but your left ’Shoulder is sore and your left ear feels permanently displaced. And whilst the floorboards are up, front and rear, you go over the greasers. They need it. With a discorded table knife you pack the sockets and the screwed cups, finding it a messy task. You take the grease up on the point of the knife, but very soon it runs riot, spreads to the very end of tho haft and all over your hands, so that presently you have a little trouble in screwing back the cups. Your hand a are soft and your grip slippery. and the spring forks in the cups appear to be a 1 wavs in the way. You appear also to “discover quite a number of greasers you hadn’t thought of. and before you arc through you are a convert to the oil-wick system of lubrication. Next you pack the leather bags

that cover the universal joints, and as you push in the grease it slide? out on the underneath side. But again you win through, disentangle yourself from the chassis, and go round with the oili can. over the lu-ako joints, the hall ; races, and the like. By this tinm. unless your enthusiasm, to say nothing of your sense .of duty towards the ear- has dissolved in all this application of oil and grease, you have developed a friendship for the machine. You know much, more about it. know it intimately, and a hold-up on tho road, a thing which seldom happens these days, will have to be serious if you cannot tackle it. With some confidence you turn to the battery, housed —good engineering term—behind the back axle, but accessible. Yes. you can get to it. but for treatment it must bo withdrawn. You undo all the nuts, unscrew the stiffenings, and —the thing won’t budge. You apply pressure with a lever, but the thing is tightly wedged, and what movement there is suggests that if the pressure is increased '‘something will give that ought not to give. You leave it. and test shows that water is urgently needed, and distilled water i 3 insisted on by all authorities. With the aid of an old glass funnel, a. relic of days v hen photography was something more than snapshotting, o supply is given. Now for the final and biggest thing,

the emptying of the engine sump. Under the ear you crawl, clean, the sump plug with a piece of waste, and make a. surrey. The plug is castellated, not. shouldered, so you insert a tire lerer in the castellations and apply pressure. It is an awkward angle you are working at. with the plug straight above your taco, and there are unpleasant! possibilities. If your lever slips, it means a back barking of your knuckles : if the ping is shortthreaded and gives suddenly you are in for a deluge of uirty oil. straight on to your neck and wace. However, all goes well, and an old garden bucket, deftly and timely placed, catches the drainings. A wash out of the sump with parafHn, a wipe down and the plug is replaced, tightened home, and from an upright position now. and easier, the new oil is poured in. The indicator states that enough lias been given. All is well : the task is through. The engine, is humming sweetly, the machine is cleaned down, the lifted cleared away. All is ready now for better clays, for longer hours of daylight, and there is a sense of a task well done - and one that could not much longer have been postponed.