Motor Notes

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18785, 19 May 1923, Page 9

Motor Notes

(By ‘Carbon. ) REDUCING RUST ON I’RONT SPRING OF FORD. Much of the rust, -which is to be found on the steering connections and front spring of the average Ford vehicle can be attributed to the deleterious effects of the water from the radiator overflow pipe, which is poured oyer the .spring and steering every time the radiator overflows. This not onh’ causes rust, but it also brings dirt from the water jackets of the engine and the interior of the radiator, and spreads those .dver tlie aforementioned parts. A cure can be found for this by the fitting of a small piece of copper tubing soldered on to the existing overflow pipe and .suitably bent, so that it will convey the excess water direct to the road. THE BEST TIME FOR MOTORING. I Ihe first 365 days of every year arc the best for motoring. THOSE SCREECHING BRAKES. Car owners are always asking for a satisfactory remedy for screeching brakes. One doesn’t wonder in the least that they are. interested in the abject, because there are few car noises that are more annoying and cm-j harassing to the conscientious motorist. ; Some drivers try washing the brake I crams and linings with a hose. I’hat ! helps until the water dries. Others try neat’s-foot oil. Still others squirt a little kerosene over the drums. Ihe , latter remedy produces good results, | but it involves a danger. After the | brakes have been treated with kerosene, they are extremely inefficient. .’ he I kerosene can be dried off by holding 1 the brakes half on while driving, but many motorists forget to do this and thus run the risk of an accident when trying to make the first sudden stop. It was just this danger that caused one motorist to try using petrol. He carries a little oilcan full of it w r ith him in the car. and squirts a few drops on tile brakes when they start screeclv- i mg —which is usually after a dusty trip. Being more volatile than ker«>sene, it dries off almost immediately, thus doing the job of cleaning the brake drums without making them temporarily inefficient. MAGNETO TIMING. Sometimes it is possible to make an improvement in running by adjusting the setting of the magneto. It it is safficiently advanced, the engine runs more sluggishly and uses more fuel than it should. It will also run hotter. The spark must occur before the piston reaches the top of the compression stroke, in order that the explosion may have raised the pressure oi gas inside the cylinder to its maximum by the time the piston is on the point of descending on the working stroke. If the spark occurs too late, the gas is not properly ignited, and consequently some portion of its expansion power is lost. Lt is easy- to tel! if the spark is timed late; with the machine running on the road, retard the ignition slightly. If the power immeuiatly falls off and the engine becomes “dead" and doggish, will not accelerate, ami has no speed, then ihe spark is late. Correctly timed, it should be possible to ietard the spark a trifle without any appreciable effect upon running being lelt. Io make a rough test on the stand, set the throttle to allow the engine to run fairly slowly and then ielard the spark fully. If the engine peters out altogether, it may be taken that the ignition is late. The engine should continue to run in full retard, but in a ponderous, deliberate sort of fashion. A good all-round method of timing the magneto is io j>lace the piston on top dead centre, or the compression stroke and, retarding the ignition lever almost fully, set the contact-braker points just separating. CYLINDER HEAD JOINTS. One often keflrs it suggested that if a cylinder head gasket be given a co-at of shellac or varnish on Loth sides before it is used or refitted, the likelihood of a water or compression leak is reduced. That is so, but- and the qualification is important the probability is that the gasket will be worthless when next the cylinder head is removed; a new gasket will be needecg whereas if the' shellac had not been applied to the! old one it might well have served again and again. What happens is, that the bhellac adheres not only to the gasket cut also to the cylinder block below, and to the cylinder head above, ami iorms a hard film between the units a» it dries ; when the cylinder head is next removed and the gasket lifted off, some of the shellac is left on one unit and some on the others resulting in very uneven surfaces to be brought together again subsequently It is almost impossible to clean off all the film from the four surfaces, and rarely does a fresh coating enable a good joint to be remade with the same gasket. Theie is really no ne-id for shellac to be iued to make a good joint, providing the surfaces to come into contact are scrupulously clean and the gasket is in good condition ; if a gasket is defective it will require something far more effective than shellac to make it worth reinstating. American manufacturers of motor trucks and motor buses will be very much interested in a proposal just now before the parliament of Japan. The proposal i.s tliat the Japanese government shall buy motor truck and bus equipment, to possibly as many as 10,000 vehicles, to supplement the service of the state jailways. Japan needs better and more comprehensive transportation facilities both for goods and passengers. Extension of the railways would be tremendously expensive and this idea has been advanced to give the needed transpoition facilities at a lesser cost. Many prominent railway men are behind ihe movement, ihe motor service would be state opoiated. and within a few months definite action will probably lie taken. If plan is actually put into effect, the Japanese government will )>e in the market for great numbers of motor vehicles. Most of these will probably be bought in America.

j KEEP YOUR RIMS SMOOTH. Many motorists allow their rims io' become badly rusted. The rough per-; tides of rust ana scale act like sand-' i paper on the inner tube and a pre- • maturely worn tube or blowout is the , 1 result. An occasional coat of alu-l | minium paint when the are re- 1 I moved will act as a rust preventative I i and greatly prolong the life of rhe ', I tubes. , I Switching on and off all one’s lamps': ; behind a lorry that cue wants to pass i ] is a most excellent idea, as long as the j i iorry-driver does not jump to the con- ; I elusion that something lias gone wrong. . with his own works, and pull up all ol | . <> sudden in the middle of the road. I RILE AT INTERSECTIONS. ! The New Zealand Automobile Union. Las recommended that legislation be brought down next session requiring motorists io give way to the man on the right at intersections of two roads , of equal importance, motorists at present do not give way and accidents consequently occur. CORD v. CANVAS TYRE, Tests have been made in America which prove conclusively that cord tv’es i are better than canvas. Of course. ' rhey are I Ou this side we have known 1 I that for years. Tlu re i.s. too. .noth-1 1 ihg new in cord tyres, which are simply example., of the n.ethod oi tyre con- ! , struction which has I con used on push cycles for many years, only there are | more layers of the fabric. Tests have; I been made at .Brooklands between e.o v d: tyres and canvas tyres of good quality. ' I These tests showed that the cord tyres ; i were distinctly superior. One of the. I Tests was as follow : A certain car v.sts set off from iho banking and allowed to come to rest cn the level, first with ! cord and then with c anvas tyres, nr cl i in every case the cord tyres ran farther than the others. Over £4,009,000 of rubber tyres of; all kinds wer-e imported by Groat Brit- 1 ! ' ain during 1922. i It is interesting to note that out of ( 305 makes of cars on the English mar-, i ket, only 31 l re fitted with rims for; I straight-sided iyres, the balance carry-1 ing rims for beaded edg® covers. Don’t attempt to change a tyre from i a rim with which you are unfamiliar, i Serious accidents have occurred because! oi improper locking, resulting in their) flying off when the tyre has been in-; Gated. The greatest enemy to ball-bearings ‘ i is wet. So soon as the balls or races) ' of ;• bearing become rusted, pitting sets : I in. and once pitting has started the i ' load will soon pound down the bear-; ' mgs and destroy the bearing surfaces. ! ! The greatest care should therei lore be taken to ensure that ; no water can get into the bear-1 I mgs. The bearings of the front I I wheel are more generally accessible r.o ; : wet. The best way to prevent the ! trouble is to see that thick felt or j j leather washers are fitted and that the , bearings are always packed with a good ' j quality grease. Some of the greases; j which arc now being sold at sub-j 1 stantially low prices ire to be avoided, j The best of greases i.s alone good lor automobile purposes. 'I here are grease, manufacturers with names and repul a-j tions too valuable to damage by the i supplying of inferior lubricants. If ilie motorist gets their branded goods, as recommendel by them for the particular purposes lor which they are required, he may have to pay a little: more, but his gain in the end will Ire j considerable over the cheeseparing i inotorist criterion of merit I in an article is cheapness. There is; ••thing cheap to-day. Most cheap things are dear at any price. It I would take a good many tins of the liest! and highest-priced grease to pay for a, lull set of front wheel ball or roller! bearings. i . BACK WADING. .. M hen the history of commercial ■ motor transport comes to be writtan, the year .1922 will probably be selected i as the one m which one of the most j important developments took definite | shape. I refer to the. system of “ backloading,’’ or the avoidance of wane' mileage. In Britain motor transpoit, is owned by a large number of small i firms, each running a few lorries, and I | contracting for carriage from ' their! I home tow n to points all over the coun-i ; try. In the. past the rfian whose goods; were being conveyed, had to be debited] with the cost of the return journey,i w hich had to be made empty. Now- j adays, however, we have changed all that—thanks largely to the modest little clearing bouse scheme initiated by the Automobile Association (Industrial \ chicle Section) shortly after the Avar. in launching their scheme the A.A. put no re.servn.tion upon it. I hey gave it to the transjMirt w’orld J or what it was wort]). Recognition of it was slow and it was not until this year, ; when the need for economy becair.e I paramount, that clearing houses came into existence in all the largo and . many of the smaller centres. THE PRIVATE GARAGE. The minimum floor space for a private or home garage should be 12 feet ■ by 20 feet, says an American paper. I liese dimensions do 'not allow room for either a work bench or for storage 1 ; they are simply for the man w ho ; intends to take care of bis car. CHANGING GEAR PROPERLY. ■ Nearly every driver thinks he knows ’ how to shift gears, but some make a bad mess of it. ( ft may seem rather bromidic to ask a. motor-car driver whether he knows bow to shift gears. Inevitably the an- 1 fewer would Ire, “of course.” but ar.v f student of motoring who will take his i stand at some strategic point where 1 evea’y driver wdio passes has to shift - t gears will very quickly be convinced t that only a small percentage know how to shift gears properly. In making any shift there is in- < pvitably a small amount of noise, but j tlie clashing and grinding that are so , commonly heard when this operation is .

performed are a certain indication that the gear shift is going to develop trouble, chipped teeth, shaft thrown out of alignment and ultimate failure. Hntil the driver learns to shift gears quietly, he is causing excessive wear in his gear shift. Practically every car to-day has what is known as the sliding selective type of gear shift. In practically every car using the sliding selective transmission, the shifting lever is ‘located in the centre of the front scat compartment, on the driver’s right, or left. In construction the sliding transmission embodies one shaft with fixed gears* and another with sliding gears, the latter being pushed into me.sh with the former when the shifting lever is moved. It is obvious that if the gears are to mosh quietly the two sets must be travelling at lv the same rate of speed. The driver 'vhq lias realised this, who thrusts the sliding gears into mesh with the fixed gears when the two are travelling nt totally different rates of speed, gets the clashing and grinding that we to commonly hear. Tn get the two sets of gears moving at approximately the .same rate of speed, requires thought and practice. For instance, in shifting from first to second gear, the driver should pause a second or two after the lever i.s in neutral, before he pushes it into second. Th© reason for this is that the moment the clutch is disengaged' the second speed gear is travelling at a different rate of speed from that of the corresponding gear on the countershaft. -By delaying just a second the speeds have a chance to become about equal and a quiet shift results. There is seldom any difficulty in shifting from second to third or from third to fourth, in cars equipped with a four-speed gear set The most troublesome change lor most drivers is that from third back to second and this is where we get the clashing and grinding. To begin with most drivers make this downward shift when the car is travelling too fast. ‘ I he car should not he going more than ten miles per hour o-r” fifteen at the cutside. The best method of avoiding trouble is by accelerating the engine just as the shift is about to bo made and before the clutch is thrown cut. Do not accelerate after the clutch has been disengaged. Remember just a slight touch on the accelerator pedal, iust before the. clutch is thrown out. A little practice will enable any driver to make an almost soundless shift and will add materially to the length of life of his gear shift. The most pronounced feature of the development of 1922 was the rise in popularity of the small car. Much of this undoubtedly arose from the almost universal desire to economics (>n motoring, or in all other expenditure; but no small portion also was due to the great attention and prominence given to the type by quite 90 per cent, of manufacturers. The result, in a way. was highly satisfactory. Ihe status of the small car was improved, and its mechanical efficiency raised to a pitch which it is correct to say never was contemplated a year previously.