THE STALLED ENGINE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18916, 19 January 1924, Page 9

THE STALLED ENGINE

WHERE DANGER LIES. Durin" any lengthy period of motoring, the driver usually has to face the position, generally upon a road comprising severe inclines which he has never before encountered, the stalling of his engine. It may be that he has felt quite confident that the car would surmount the incline which he is climbing in second gear, and realising too late that this cannot be done, stalls his engine before he can change to low. It is at this time, upon a severe incline with the engine stalled, that presence, of mind is very essential if a serious accider.’. is not to result. Strangely eno.ugh, that which is done extensively by even old drivers under these circumstances is to declutch and apply both brakes. It is in the declutching that the vital mistake is made In the first place, it should be remembered that very few cars, have their brake work so arranged that the braking action is as effective in reverse as when the car is proceeding in a forward irection. The result is, that oftentimes, the two brakes, however vigorously applied, fail to bring the car to a standstill. In which case, if the hill is very severe and the conditions of each side of the road will permit it, the usual resource is to lock the steering hard over to one side or the other, and thus get the car across the road instead of up and down.

What should really to be done is to leave the gear, whatever it may be, still in engagement. Don’t touch either the clutch or the gear lever in fact, but switch off in case the engine should be started by momentum, and apply one or both brakes as the need suggests. The engine being in gear, but not firing, exerts a splendid retarding action upon the car as • a whole, and never fails to bring the car to rest when it is supplemented by the action of the brakes.

Thj writer has in memory a number of occasions when experienced, level-headed drivers, who have been faced with this contingency, have done the wroug thing by immediately declutching. In every instance it has meant a runaway car. and a more or less costly reinstatement of the vehicle.