The King's Highway

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 5, Issue 3, 1 September 1926, Page 49

The King's Highway

By Rancho

With another summer looming ahead, the car-owner will do well at this season to make sure that all is well with the works. Now-a-days the motor-car is a more or less owner-proof vehicle, and few people give their cars the laborious personal attention that was customary a few years back. Nevertheless, a thorough look-over of all working parts at least once a year by a good, honest garage man is sound economy. The engine, gear-box, and differential are, of course, the most vital parts of the outfit, and should be given a good clean out and inspection for wear. ;;; Front-wheel bearings are similarly worth looking to and as one’s life depends on the efficiency of the steering mechanism it should be carefully examined throughout and worn pins, kingbolts, etc., replaced. The electrical equipment deserves a run over and wiring with frayed insulations should also be given attention. It will probably be found that the radiator can do with a good clean out and run through with washing soda. The springs should be carefully inspected and greased if necessary, and worn spring shackle bolts replaced. In the course of this examination all bolts and nuts through the chassis will incidentally be tested for tightness, the whole of the bolts securing the body to the

chassis being gone over in particular. ❖ -! : * * I 'here is no doubt that most of us scamp looking after our cars. The very fact that the modern motor will go on running with so little attention and will stand so much neglect is in itself a temptation to carelessness. In the end Nemesis overtakes the careless owner with a failure usually at the most inconvenient time- dark road, say, miles from anywhere, on a wet night, when everyone is tired and anxious to be abed. Then with the rain trickling down our necks, and minus the torch, forgotten at home, or with an inspection lamp with a dead bulb, we grope for the tool kit and stub our fingers and our temper, searching vainly for the cause of trouble. * * * * r I 'hese are the sort of trying cxperiences one avoids by always keeping the car in good nick. Few of us enjoy fussing around in over-

Al (^auserie

alls, and most of us can spend a long time with a spanner in hand achieving very little. The best way out in most cases, I think, would be to turn the car in to an honest, dependable garage man to spend an hour on it once a week or once a fortnight, according to the amount one uses it. But perhaps, after all, this solution is not as simple as it sounds, for the ideally dependable garage man, alas, does not grow on every gooseberry bush. Such a one discovered is a jewel to be treasured. 'l' ;f: * T hear a rumour that the Main -*• Highways Board is increasing its staff so as to enable its engineer, Mr. A. Tyndall, to be up and about the country. At present Mr. Tyndall is tied to his desk in Wellington with routine work. The highways Board is handing out to the local bodies about half a million a year for the purpose of improving the roads, but at the moment it docs not seem to be anybody’s very special business to hop around and see

just what results that expenditure is producing. Nominally this responsibility rests on the district engineers of the Public Works Department. As most of these district engineers have railway construction works, hydro-electric works, and heaven only knows what else to look at ter, the amount of time left on their hands for perambulating the 6000 miles of main highways is not overlarge. Systematic personal inspection by the board's engineer should help a lot in stirring the laggard counties from their slumbers. j{C /\ still - born movement buried f X more or less in a pigeon-hole in the biggest wooden building in the world in Wellington deserves a helping hand from the motoring organisations. This is the scheme initiated some years ago for the marking of historic spots, and the preservation of historic monuments. On tour it is always interesting to know about these places, and the youngsters in a family party can achieve a lot of history without tears when father is able to point out to them the site of some historic episode in the Maori wars. Especially is this the case if there is a cairn or obelisk with an inscribed tablet to freshen up everybody’s memory as to what actually took place.

jC'nr instance, how many travellers A hastening along the main highway south of Te Awamutu ever recall how much history is wrapped up in the crossing of the Punui River near Kihikihi? Isn’t it worth while being reminded that this for nearly a quarter of a century was the jealously-guarded frontier of the King Country, the aukati line that the pakeha crossed at the peril of his life? It is an old song now, and the grass grows green along the battlefield, but the romance and tragedy of the old frontier days deserves its memento mori by the roadside. * * * * XTot so long ago South Island x y motorists on tour in the North Island were loud in their remarks about the inferior quality of northern roads as compared with their own. Nowadays it is being realised that the South Island roads in parts are not so very much in advance of those in the North. I notice a southerner who travelled from Wellington to Auckland, via Taranaki, the other day reported to his home town that there was not fifty miles of bad road in the run, and nothing worse than the main ChristchurchDunedin road near Dunsandel. A year or two ago no one would have written thus of a mid-winter run through the North Island. * * * * the wide dispersion of good road-making material in Canterbury and Otago, it cannot be denied that considerable stretches of main roads in those regions have fallen below standard. One good Dunedinite with whom I discussed the matter last year solemnly and seriously averred that it was impossible for Otago to have good roads under motor traffic. It simply couldn’t afford to lay down expensive concrete or bitumen surfaces, and there was no other sort of road at all that stood motor traffic. If one swallowed this gloomy statement, there certainly seemed no way out for motordom in Otago and Canterbury. Quite a different reason why the once-good roads arc going back there is disclosed in the annual report of the Main Highways Board. It is the quite simple one that they spend less on their main roads there than in any other part of the Domnion! Another reason is the way the roads arc mended by some of the local bodies, for no one has ever yet made a good motor road with stone of the huge size used so widely in parts of the South Island. sj: 5k ;k :k A round-up of motorists in Arnerica to discover unlicensed drivers means a really tremendous upset in these days. The registrar in Massachusetts in June estimated that of the 700,000 motor drivers in that State about 15,000 must have failed

to renew or procure their driving licenses. In order to catch as many of these as possible it was decided to call on all motorists passing certain points in Boston to produce their driving licenses. It seems to have been an exciting turn-out, for on the main roads in and out of the city traffic is so dense, when anybody stops everybody else behind has also to stop. Jams and confusion were universal, and in the end, after holding up the whole city, the police

bag was three unlicensed drivers, and three with expired licenses! * * * * T_Tere is some advice from Ame- -*• rica that applies very generally in New Zealand, now that the filling station has come to stay:— “Tell those smokers in your car to be careful with their cigars and cigarettes when you have stopped for petrol at the filling station. Sometimes the ground is covered with petrol that has spilled out of the hose. Smokers on the rear seat have a habit of flicking their ashes promiscuously during the filling process. Suggest to them that they be content to motor on earth for a while longer.” Hudson Coach Owing to a typographical error in the announcement by The Dominion Motors Ltd., featuring Hudson cars, in the August issue of The Mirror, the price of the Hudson Super Six Coach Model was inadvertently mis-stated. Instead of £455, as published, the price should have read £465.