High Road and By-Road

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17220, 1 October 1927, Page 24 (Supplement)

High Road and By-Road

THE CLUTCH.

The employment of the clutch by many car drivers for keeping down speed in traffic is not to be recommended. Occasional slipping for this purpose does not much matter, but prolonged slipping is bad, because t!f> wasted power of the engine is transformed into heat, which is apt to impair the efficiency of the friction material. More still" to be deprecated is the use of the clutch to get over a hill without changing gears. In both- these cases a change of gear is much to be preferred. ■ There is another thing in connection with the clutch that must be avoided. It is customary when driving to keep one foot on the clutch pedal, but it is most important that the weight of the foot should not be allowed to cause slight slipping. If the clutch be left in and the foot taken off the accelerator pedal the egnine will help to retard the car up to a certain point. Generally speaking, the clutch should be either “in" or "out,” and the pedal should always he .adjusted so that there is little play —say, half an inch at the pedal end-—before the clutch begins to he withdrawn. The pedal should never be adjusted so that it fouls the floorboards in the “out" position. SIGNALLING FROM CLOSED CARS. One of the principal difficulties of taking a closed car through thick traffic is io signal one’s intention in a clear and unmistakable manner. So far as following traffic is concerned, the only occasion calling for signals are when slowing down, stopping, or, most important, when turning to the right across the traffic stream. These signals can only be given by extending the right arm, with the help of a sliding window or movable panel. When approaching a constable on point duty, however, it is often desirable to indicate whether one wishes to turn to the left or right or to carry straight on, and these signals cannot conveniently he given with the right arm. A much better method is to place the right hand flat on the windscreen. The Angers and thumb'should be kept ciosc together, and the angle of the. whole hand used to indicate the directum intended by the driver. The originator of this suggestion has tried the method extensively, not only in London, hut also in many provincial towns, and has always found that the constable secs and understands the signals very quickly. Pl.vced vertically, the hand, of course, indicates the intention to carry on across the intersecting road, while left and right-hand turns are indicated by inclining the hand in appropriate directions...

A COLUMN FOR MOTORISTS.

SCORCHING SMALL CARS. Why is it, asks a London writer, that on a broad road the light cars, as a rule, go at the greatest speeds? I noticed the other day the majority of the big cars going between twenty and thirty, while many of the small ones were being pressed for all they were worth. A small car “all out” at forty or forty-five seems much more potentially dangerous than a highpowered vehicle at the same speed. Avoidance of accidents depends largely on reserve power enabling an emergency spurt and ability to drop to a minimum speed. In both respects a small car driven to capacity is hampered. GENEROSITY-CUM-SARCASM. Mr John Curtis Webber, of Denmark Hill, London, against whom the police had issued a summons for a technical motoring offence, has written to the chief clerk of the Police Court, where the case will be heard, enclosing a cheque for £3OO to pay the fine, and surplus, if any, shall be given to the London Hospital. The summons against Mr Webber is for not showing his road license in a proper holder, which must be waterproof. The fine for this offence is one not exceeding 10s. the personal touch. “If you want the best out of your car,” says the representative of a huge American motoring concern, “you might divest yourself of all selfish aims in life, fid devote the same amount of personal interest to your car as you would to. your business. Don’t tinker with it, and don’t allow anyone else to do so. If you would prolong the life of your car —and save unnecessary expense—then do the same for it as you would for a member of your own family—seek expert advice and expert attention. TYRE CONSTRUCTION. It will come as a surprise to most motorists to know that rubber is not the only ingredient that goes to make a motor lyre. Pure rubber, like pure gold, is valueless in tyre construction, until mixed with certain chemicals and compounds, which give it the required degree of strength, hardness, resistance to abrasion, and the like. Indeed, rubber was commercially useless until 1837, because of the fact that when warm it would get soft and unfit, and when cold would grow brittle and crack. In that year Charles Coodjfiir, after many years of painstaking experiment, discovered that rubber mixed with sulphur and combined with heat ,would vulcanise, and thereafte' 1 would remain impervious to any change in the temperature. This discovery laid the foundation of the rubber industry of to-day. Given high-grade rubber, fabric, and compounds, Uie tyre manufacturer’s next problem lies in correct construction and design. The tyre is built up from plies of fabric, cut on the bias, and running in alternate directions. A tyre must be built of enough plies to give it the required strength to meet the load it must carry, and the road conditions it must meet. The number of plies may vary from two to ten or twelve in the largest size truck tyres. With a sturdy body and a correctly built head to hold the tyre on to the rim, the next thing is a tread of tough rubber to protect the fabric from road wear and from moisture. SPARKS. A club has lately been formed in Paris called the Auto Camping Club do France to encourage motor camping in that country. Some of the best repartee in the world occurs to the driver a couple of hours after bis argument with the traffic cop. Nothing works out right. In a town where you can park as long as you want to there, is no reason why you should want to. There is something about the glass they put in windshields that magnifies a tack that makes a pedestrian seem small matter.

Many cars with ignition trouble have new points installed when it could be prevented by one drop of oil occasionally on the pin through breaker arm.

Motorists in Rochester, N.Y., bumped off more than their quota of electric light poles during April. The average for six months is 15 poles, but during April 23 poles came down.

Worn spots on nickel or places where it has chipped off can be improved by touching up with aluminium paint. While this does not make the most effective remedy, it helps considerably, and may prevent further wearing or chipping.

The directors of the Dunlop Rubber' Company of England have entered into a provisional arrangement with the Dunlop Rubber Company of Australasia providing for the financial association of the two companies and the closest possible technical and commercial alliance. The arrangement includes the acquisition of a share interest in the Australian company by the Dunlop Company and representation on the board; also the formation of a separate New Zealand company, jointly owned by the two Dunlop companies, for better trade development.

The University of Kansas has made a rather unexpected finding after tests of balloon tyres. The report sets out that front tyre wear is actually greater than rear tread wear on concrete or bitumen roads. It is stated that if a car is used exclusively on roads of this nature the rear tyres will outlast the front. The relative wear is, of course, upset when the car is covering roads of all classes. The reason given for the result of these tes.ts is that on perfectly smooth roads the wear involved in steering is greater than that caused by the friction of the driving wheels. The result of these tests is certainly puzzling, and il is hard to believe that the effects of rm- 1 breaking have been fully c . h. dm investigation-

A road live miles long has just been ( completed in Ventura County, Cali- i fornia, to determine the most suitable type of concrete road for modern heavy traffic. The road is divided into sec- | tions 400 yards in length, each section : being of a different type of concrete, j

, One of the improvements of considerable importance brought out during the past few years of automotive research is the oil filter. This unit has been responsible for the elimination of excessive engine wear, and frequent changing of oil, thereby minimising repair hills and operating expense.