MOTORS & MOTORING

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2515, 16 July 1915, Page 9

MOTORS & MOTORING

IBy Clutch.l

The Motor's Part in the War. A week ago Italy (wrote M. Massac Buist in the "Morning Post" of May. 28) .was the only European nation witli a motor-manufacturing industry which was not engaged in the war, and which had been freely supplying British buyers with motor vehicles. The appreciable trade done in this country in German and Austrian cars ceased' with the outbreak of hostilities; the Belgian industry has fallen into the hands of our enemies, who are making every use of its resources, and tlis French and British industries have been almost exclusively engaged in supplying their own and Aussia's military and naval needs, so that to-day the minimum of such makes of cars are available t) the private buyer.'' It is evident that the part tho motor vehicle is already playing in European warfare is little or not at all appreciated by those not actively concerned with, the movement. For instance, the other day a well-known military authority, writing after more than nine months of war on the subject of tho amount of equipment necessary to : maintain armies in the field on the Continent, and taking as hisunit of calculation a force of about 165,000 men, gave out that the motor transport service necessary to their needs would be ninety vehicles "if they could be obtained." AVhen wo bear in mind that at least two years ago the British motor industry had attained the scale of producing at least 20,000 complete vehicles a year, and that four-fifths of that production certainly issues from the works of not more than ten firms, also that practically all those leading firms are wholly, or for tho most part, engaged exclusively on war work, tho layman will probably have no. difficulty in. believing that it is quite a while since the number of our motor vehicles engaged in campaign work on the Continent reached the ten thousand mark. Indeed, the problem, fortunately, is not' to put into tho field the necessary number of vehicles, allowing proportionately a short useful life to each on account of the exceptionally heavy wear and tear, as well as the occasional. destruction of machines by the enemy's missiles, but how to get enough trained drivers for them. AVe are expanding our motor service all tho time in due ratio with tho growth of our armies. The. need for it will increase when we begin to push back tho enemy, because we shall then by traversing ground where the railway systems will certainly have been destroyed.' A Remarkable Invention. A remarkable invention is now; being used by tho French', aviators which enables the • observer or passenger on a monoplano to use a machiue-gun, and firo through tho disc area of the revolving propeller without striking or injuring the tractor blades.. It appears that- tho trigger of the gun is geared to tho engine, so that when a blade is in the lino of fire- a lock' prevents the gun from being operated. When the crack French aviator, R. Garros, somo weeks back brought down two German machines, lie is said to have used tho above contrivance. Motorists will realise what ,tho above means when it is stated that the normal speed of the Gnomo motor; used on most of the French machines, is 1200 revolutions per minute.

The Eight-Cylinder in America. Nobody who has not been to, .America rccemly or who lias no facilities for studying American motor journals, can appreciate the extent of the boom in eight-cylinder engines' for cars. It is really astounding how quickly this type of engine has taken t'lie fancy of tho public, particularly as at least one European manufacturer has. been'.- making, similar engines for four or five years. The Americans differ from us in the way in. which they seize hold of a new featoe which they consider good. Take the matter of engine starting. Three or four years ago the Americans said that hand starting was had. There ■ was, therefore, a boom in acetylene starters, which gave place to elcctrio starters, and now it is the exception to see a starting handle in U.S.A. The Americans havo tried- the six-cylinder engine extensively, but this has hardly appealed to them to the same extent as the eight-cylinder type.

Curing a Fierce Clutch. I had/a carc through my hands a short time ago which suffered from a very fierce clutch, -writes "Expert Tester" in the "Autocar." The latter, which was of the leather cone type, seemed to engage "all at once," and there was a great fear of some serious damage being dolie to the transmission by these repeated sudden and violent applications of power. In an" endeavour to trace the causo of this fierceness, I took- a. picce of white paper about 4in. long by about lsin. wide, pressed down , tho clutch pedal, and inserted the strip of paper between the fly-wheel and the leather-covered cone. Then I allowed tho clutch to engage, and depressed tho pedal again. Upon removing and examining the paper I fouiid that marks upon it indicated that the drive was not being taken by the whole width of the leather, and that the clutch cone should enter the fly-wheel further. I found later that a projecting ridge of leather right round the cone, which was butting up against the fly-wheel and causing the trouble. After trimming tho ridge off so that no projecting part remained, and taking the car on the road, I found that the clutch fierceness had entirely disappeared, and the car _cou]d be started from rest without a sign of shock. Of course, as a rule, a ridge of leather will cause a clutch to slip, but it is obvious from the foregoing that a fierce clutch may bo due to a similar cause.

Hints and Tins. It is very often of advantage to examine the slots in the floorboards through which the pedals work. Sometimes they are rather too short, calling for frequent pedal brake adjustments or else preventing full use of the clutch brake when changing gear from a low to a higher speed. On some cars the slots are made very narrow, partly for the sake of appearance and partly to reduce the draught which may arise.. On one car wo know of there was a persistent rattle at certain engine speeds, due to the clutch pedal shuddering slightly and striking the sides of the slot. If a pedal binds in the slot it will mako the clutch slow to engage, which is not desirable unless under the control of the driver, or may prevent the brake pedal from returning to the "off" position. , No question has such an important bearing on the running of a car as that of efficient lubrication. An owner and driver is quite likely to do as much damage to his vehicle by. want of care in this respect as by reckless or inex* pericnced driving. For practically half its working life the cylinder is full of a red-hot gas, so that the importance of lubrication becomes obvious. If it wero merely a question of supplying any kind of lubricant in sufficient quantities, the problem would not be at all difficult to solve. Unfortunately, however, the conditions are such that ovor-lubrication may be just as injurious as rmderlubrication; the majority of cars suffer moro from tho former than from the latter.