The TRUTH ABOUT MOTORS

NZ Truth, Issue 1201, 6 December 1928, Page 19

The TRUTH ABOUT MOTORS

IT TAKES TWO SECONDS

To Dive to Disaster When A Tyre Blows Out ALL BECAUSE OF PUNY PATCHES When you drive at a speed of 30 miles an hour you are covering a distance of 88 feet every two seconds. In other words, at a speed of 30 miles an hour, two seconds is plenty of time for your car to go from the road to the fence if you lose steering control.

A BREAK In some part of the. steering rig is a rather unusual accident; but you are quite apt to lose fcontrol of your car for at least two Seconds if a balloon tyre on a front •wheel suddenly goes flat. An unexpected flat tyre on a rear {wheel may not jerk the wheel from Jrour hands, but It is quite apt to cause the car to swerve enough ;to cause a collision with a oar going m the opposite direction and may even put your car In the ditch. In case of an ordinary punoture you usually have sufficient warning to permit you to slow down before you get Into trouble. This Is not the case when the air is let out of the tyre suddenly by a blowout, a cut, or the loosening of a makeshift repair on a tube. The sudden and violent wrench given the steering-wheel by the excessive drag of a deflated tyre is almost sure to twist the wheel from, your grasp and you go from fancied safety to a wreck m the ditch In the twinkling of an eye. : . You cannot always guard against a cut or a blowout. You can, however, Insure against accident due to the failure of a makeshift tube repair by Insisting that all repairs to tubes, shall De permanent . heat- vulcanised, repairs. A patch on a balloon tube must stand an excessive strain from the constant bending and stretching to which it is subjected' when run m a thin- walled balloon tyre. In addition to this berid-

Ing strain, every time the wheel turns the friction between the tube and the inside of the tyre tends to drag the patch away from the injury it covers. The only way you can be sure of safe repairs to balloon tubes is to use a patch made from a grade of rubber which, after it is vulcanised, is as tough or tougher than the rubber of the tube. The tougher grades of rubber require a temperature of about 265 ,degrees Fahrenheit to change the material of the uhvulcanised patch from a soft,, sticky, putty-like substance to an eiastlo, tough, permanent, vulcanised patch. "With, a properly made vulcanised repair, the heat and pressure necessary for vulcanising actually fuses and welds the patch into an integral part of the tube. . There are reliable vulcanising outfits, small enough for the motorist to carry under a car seat, which will tenable you to make a regular "professional" vulcanised repair on a . tube, anywhere, any time, quickly. The repair units us.cd with these vulcariisers consist of a metal pan filled with the exact amount of dry, solid fuel required to vulcanise the patch of unvulcanised rubber which comes mounted on the lower side of the pan. When the unit is clamped over the repair and the fuel lighted the heat from the burning fuel vulcanises the patch and welds it to the tube.