High Road and By-Road

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18159, 25 October 1930, Page 24 (Supplement)

High Road and By-Road

NEW BRITISH STEEL.

Science is helping manufacturers to make a motor-car that will never wear out. Several notable advances made recently in metallurgy open up an encouraging prospect for owners of modest means who have to make their cars last until there is positively not another mile to be obtained from them. A British firm has now perfected a steel that is so hard that, it is impossible to scratch it with the finest file. An experimental crankshaft for a fourcylinder. engine was made and fitted to a British car. The engine was treated in the harshest manner possible, and denied the proper amount, of oil until one of the connecting rods seized solid to the crankshaft. After the bearing had been freed, it was found impossible to detect by the most delicate measuring instruments the slightest sign of wear after 10.000 miles’ running. A new steel for lining the cylinder walls is so hard that the amount of wear after many Thousands of miles is undetectable. It takes an extreme!} high polish, so that there is great economy in lubricating oil, and a notable reduction in loss of power through friction. . , , A new aluminium alloy is nearly as strons: as steal find even lighter than aluminium. Great secrecy has been maintained about its composition, but it is known f o have many valuable properties of strength and recovery from “fatigue” that will enable manufacturers to n Q e it for parts for which steel has hitherto been the only suitable metal, thus lightening the load and consequently the wear on vulnerable bearings. ' A large number'of British cars is already using a bearing that never needs lubricating and will last practically for ever. * ~ . With these advances, It should be posible to make roller and ball bearings that will never need renewing, the engine will never need attention, except for adiustments and carbonising, and with the general use of stainless steel and chromium plating, the only items that may need renewing in the car of the future will be the tyres and upholstery.: UTILISING WORN-OUT CARS. One of the problems In U.S.A., with Its 24,000,000 motor vehicles, is what to do with the millions of old wornout useless cars that are discarded yearly. Henry Ford is tackling the matter in his usual thorough manner,

and making a.profit .out of, the job. At the Ford works, at-. Dearborn, near •Detroit (U.S.A.), a junking plant has been put into on era I ion. whereby every 'evice known is concentrated on salvaging useful parts and materials for re-use; the idea being to waste nothing that can be of possible use. All. makes of cars and trucks-are bought at a fixed price of £4—there being no restrictiop as to age or conditions, but. every vehicle must have at least some semblance of tyres and a battery. A staff of 120 men work the plant, putting through 375 apparently worthless cars every 16 hours. .Already 18,000 vehicles have been wrecked in only a few weeks. Three moving conveyers are in operation—one for old Fords and the other for other makes; the' third carries scrap iron and steel to one of 10 open furnaces, and salvaged materials such as batteries, tyres, and floor-boards to waiting trucks. The first operation is

A COLUMN FOR MOTORISTS.

fo’drain all petrol and oil from engine, and even the grease is salved; headlight- lenses and lamp bulbs are collected, all glass removed and what is unusable is sent to the Ford glass factory for remelting. Floor-boards travel to the box factory and arc used- for light crates. The cotton and hair from upholstery is baled and sold, whilst the leather or.imitation fabric is collected and made into aprons for workmen.

After everything of value has been stripped from the chassis, men with powerful oxygen torches burn the motors loose from frames,-which then pass along under powerful presses which crush them up .like so many matchboxes. The iron and steel is then converted to furnaces and melted for re-use. Ford is satisfied that the

•heme, is practicable, and intends continuing the work on a more extensive scale. CARS IN THE DESERT. Some of the best-inrormed military authorities believe that the whole question of conquering the difficulties of cross-country work, such as is represented by the Sahara, Egypt. Syria, and other districts having similar characteristics,' is almost entirely a matter of tyres. Given sufficient torque at the driving whee’s, and most vehicles have this nowadays, these terrains'can be negotiated fairly easily if tyres designed to opefalte a.t a sufficiently low pressure be available. Experiments which have recently been carried out seem to show that tyre deflection is the most important factor/ It is considered that deflection is much more important than pressure per square inch, and that the ability of motor vehicles, heavy or light, to travel effectively and economically across trackless, undeveloped areas, is almost entirely dependent upon the development of tyres capable of coping satisfactorily wltlT We' big deflections mentioned.

SPARKS. - “It’s a pretty rich farming country out your way, isn’t it?” “Yes, you never saw so many Ailing stations to the acre.” The countries with the smallest number of motor vehicles in use are Spitzbergen; with one motor truck, and Bermuda, with 10 trucks, but no private cars. “To motorists, motor-cyclists and others out for fresh air: Come to church as you are,” reads a notice which has been posted outside a church in Dorset,' England. * In spite of the storm on the Royal Hunt Gup day at Ascot, a motor census taken shows that there were 4150 cars parked round the course, and in the enclosure; of that total 3050 were of British make. Daytona Beach, Florida, has been provided with a new amusement. On fine summer nights motor races are held on a course, illuminated from the promenade by floodlights, and marked off by illuminated barrels. In order to encourage the production of motor fuel in the country, the German Government is reported to .be considering a proposal that a law should be made requiring 3 per cent, of home produced fuel to be mixed with all Imported spirit. She was having her first driving lesson. “The hand lever,” said her Instructor, “brakes the rear w’heels only, and the foot pedal brakes all four. Is that clear?”. “Y—Yes,” replied the learner, doubtfully, “but I’d rather not have any of them broken."

Going over the chromium plated and baked enamel parts of a car about once a week with a-rag dampened with kerosene or a good grade of oil polish is a simple method of keeping the original lustre on headlamps, radiators and fenders. According to the latest statistics of the number of motor vehicles in. all countries, Sweden takes the sixth place in Europe. England comes first with 1,370,711, then France with 1.265,841, Germany with 609,030, Italy with 230,509, Spain with 178,176, and Sweden sixth, with 144,519 motor vehicles. Practically every motorist or motor mechanic must have an old bowler hat lying around. A good use for this is to cut off the brim and wear just the crown when working in the garage. The hat thus formed will, prove ideal for pt work, keeping mud and dirt off the hair .when working on the chassis bearings and so on . under the car. The municipal authorities of Orleans, France, have recently organised a number of parking places in the town. Although a charge is made for the use of the parks, each user is given a ticket, on the back of which it is announced that the local authorities give a guarantee up to £320 against the car being stolen, and up to £4O in respect of accessories, only furs, jewellery, trunks, and handbags being excluded.

• . An overseas motorist was recently the victim of a practical joke. His engine stopped, and absolutely refused t,o restart. The plugs, wires, and curhuretter proved to be in order, and when the owner was questioned about his petrol, he said that he had been running on the same tankful for some time. After a long discussion he admitted that, at the suggestion 'of a friend, he had added a dozen mothballs to “eliminate knock." The petrol was changed and all was well. CYCLE NOTES. Largely due to the financial depression in Australia and acute competition in Central Europe, British motorcycle export figures are considerably down as compared with last year. But at the same time imports are also on the decline, the figures for the past five months ended May -31 being £BO2I, which is the lowest since 1927.

Strangely enough, foot-operated gear controls, although used (in a rough-and-ready form) and preferred by the vast majority of wartime despatch riders, have still ’ to become popular among l motor-cyclists. This state of affairs will undoubtedly change within the next-year,or two, for in the Isle of 'Man this year hardly a machine was fitted with hand operation, and so great is the.influence of the T.T. that a" feature that becomes standard jn the island, rightly or wpoiVgly,' is ; soon incorporated in production models. •