TO PREVENT TYRE PUNCTURE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2170, 31 August 1920, Page 1

TO PREVENT TYRE PUNCTURE.

“It is safe (o say that during the last 25 years hundreds of patents have been taken out for the prevention of! punctures in pneumatic lyres, la most of them the centra) idea was to make (lie tyre impenetrable to nails and oilier injurious articles," says Chamber's .Journal. “A recent inventor approached the problem from a new angle by studying the process by which the nail gets into the tyre. He found that (1) nearly all nails lie Hat on the road; (2) in-motorcycles and ears DO per cent, of nail punctures are in the rear lyres; (3) punctures occur most readily at high speeds and on dry roads; (4) the front tyres are pierced by short nails, the rear tyres by long nails.

“From these observed facts lie eoneluded that rear-lyre punctures are caused by the front lyre turning objects on end, with the result that if the rear lyre reaches them before they fall again, it is pierced. Experiments conducted over a track strewn with nails verified this theory, not only were the nails seen to act thus, but they were caught ‘redhanded,’ as it were, by a high-speed camera. The puncture-preventer designed as the outcome of these observations and experiments turn down nails as fast as the front lyre turns them up. and so the rear tyre is saved. The form of it suitable for motor cycles consists of a specially constructed rubber-canvas flap, din. wide, usually mounted on a scroll spring attached to n curved steel racket fixed by one bolt through (he fore-end of the rear mudguard, but occasionally attached to the silencer or to a special adapter. The Hap ‘covers’ the rear tyre, and deal's the road by half an inch. It lasts tor about 25,000 miles, and can then be renewed cheaply. “The panelure-preventer has kept, the inventor free from punctures for 25,000 miles; previously he had IT in 11,000 miles. On one occasion he rode for seven hours over a track .strewn with thousands of naid. So long as the apparatus was in position no damage was done: when it was removed, rear punctures came thick and fast, forms of the preventer suitable for motor-cycles are already on the market; models suitable for cars and cycles will be ready shortly.”