DRIVING CONTROL

Evening Star, Issue 22443, 14 September 1936, Page 13

DRIVING CONTROL

Good control of the car and comfort on tour necessitates having the seat, foot pedals, land steering wheel adjusted to suit the driver. It is well worth while to take some trouble with the various settings and adjustments, even to the extent of structural alterations. Most modern care are adjustable in respect of steering rake and the front seat position. Pedals may in certain cars be raised or lowered in respect to the clutch or brake levers, or shaped blocks may be affixed to the pads lor short drivers. Resetting of pedals is not .always practicable, and hardly desirable unless it cannot be avoided. Even the gear lever can often be reset to como more near to the driver’s hand. JURY RIGGING If you have ever been faced with a completely “dead” engine when over 20 miles from any garage, perhaps you can realise my feelings a few Sundays ago, writes an “■ Autocar ’ contributor. After running for over 3,000 miles since delivery my car’s engine out out just as if I had switched off, and the hundreds of square miles of moorland around me, although rich in history, could not produce a spare. Not even a nutl With instruction book, paper, and much misplaced energy, 1 finally ran the trouble to earth in the battery ignition distributor head a broken rocker-arm spring. According to tho best traditions of break-downs, it should have been raining with the shades of night approaching rapidly. But, actually, the sun was shining brilliantly in the early morning, so I sat down on a big stone, with pipe and matches, to puzzle out a remedy. Spare springs 1 had none; there was a small chance of passing help, and it was too far to walk home. After a smoke, inspiration came. Why not a rubber spring? So, at the expense of several barked knuckles, i manoeuvred a small elastic band over the end of the rocker-arm and anchored it on the other fixed contact. Fifteen minutes later, with an exhausted battery and a blistered palm, 1 realised that something was still “ oif the rails.” A big stone, pipe, matches, and instruction book were again brought into use, and on one page I found the following illuminating sentence: — “ When no reading shows on the ammeter after switching the ignition ‘ on,’ it is clear that there is an open circuit in the low-tension supply to the coil.” Exactly! Clear as crystal! But where ? Then came the second inspiration within an hour in the distributor head. Investigation showed that the “ juice ” for the coil was carried up to the contacts by tho rocker-arm spring. This was “ busted,” and, as elastic bands do not carry enough current to feed a coil, the whole box of tricks was on strike. Verb sap! A scrap of flex wire was cut from tho interior lamp of the car and a temporary lead made from the low-tension terminal to the rockerarm. It was purely as a matter of personal interest that this “ jury rig ” was left in situ even after investing in a new rocker-arm, and actually 1 ran the car 310 miles before the elastic band snapped.