SHORT CIRCUITS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 450, 7 February 1933, Page 2

SHORT CIRCUITS

A prominent research engineer in England is using dompressed coal gas stored in metal containers on a RollsRoyce car. * * * * In Berlin doctors have been authorised to carry an extra lamp on the mudguards of their cars showing a red cross on a green hackground. * Summoned for leaving his 'car on an English promenade without lights, a motorist said he had gone to bed and forgotten fill ahout it. * * * Although there is a decided improvement in 1933 "utility" motor cycles, there is not the slightest indication of a decline in the new "sports" class. & * * Rubber is the basis of a hew preparation for surfacing roads, invented by a Dutch engineer. it is claimed th'at the. resulting surface is skidproof and that it reduces traffic noise. * * :!: . v Important advancements toward solving the problem of eommereial production of petrol from coal are reported to have been effected by research workers in England. * * * Smoking while driving is forbidden in Czecho-Slovakia, while under anoth'er regulaton adult passengers in excess of the number of seats provided in a car may not be carried. * 5| * A legal authority mentions that a cow has a legal right to use the road. Motorists say this only confirms what the cow seems to have known fill along. * * * * "Horns play very little part in giving warning, for one side always say they sounded their horn, and the other that they never heard it," says an English judge. * * * * The golden rules of battery maintenance are to top up with distilled water every fortnight and to keep the top of the battery dry and clean; to switch off the headlights when using the self-starter. * * * One of the simplest and most efficient methods of ventilating a saloon car is to run with the windscreen open about an inch. This enables the fresh air to enter the car, yet, being intercepted by a cushion of air in the interior, it does not. cause a draught or inconvenience to any of the occupants. * :j: * A soft, dry piece of 'shammy" leather is the best polishing cloth to employ, and the refleetor should he cleaned with a cireular movement of the hand. If it is very dirty the polishing powder may be moistened with methylated spirit. $ * * A correspondent in a letter to an Eng-lish' daily paper said he had decided to buy a motor-car, but discovered that under the Road Traffic Act he could commit 202 offenees, mostly technical. He has decided to keep on walking. * * * * As a rule, it is best to disturb the cover glass of the h'eadlamp as infrequently as possible, but if the highlypolished refleetor of the lamp becomes dirty or tarnished it must be cleaned carefully. Ordinary polishing compounds should not be used for this work, as they are too abrasive, but dry rouge or plate powder is suitable. * * * When you see another car is about to back into yours and there is no time. to escape, release the brakes. This will reduce strain on the parts which receive the shock. When a car is parked on a hill many people engage the gears as a safeguard additional to the hand brake. This may result in damage to the transmission if the car is struck by another. A :k jk

"Resisting temperatures to several •hundred degfees centigrade, a new magnet steel more powerful than tungsten and cobalt products has been developed in Japan. Made of iron, nickel and aluminium, the new steel is said to have nine times the coercive force of tungsten and two and one-half times that of the best cobalt magnet steels. Its magnetie strength can be varied. Magnetie stability is retained under mechanical shocks. The steel is not readily forged, and must be cast to shape. * * * 4 For keeping steel surfaces bright, a less expensive substitute for petroleum grease has been found in lanoline, a waste produet of the woollen industry. Tests have showh that pieces of steel, coated with crude lanoline and turned once a month in a dry unheated room, showed no signs of rusting. Pieces similarly treated and stored in an ammonium-citrate shed withstood corrosion for three years. In contrast to this, other pieces, cleaned 'and dried and eovered with mineral oil, rusted completely in from one to •six months. * * * One of the hest ways of removing water from the petrol tank is to drain off the petrol, replace the plug or tap, and pour in a pint or so of methylated ispirit; then rock the car from side to side for a few moments, and drain off again. The water will dissolve in the spirit, and so run out with it; while if the cap of the tank is left off for a time before it is refilled with petrol all traces of spirit will evaporate. * * * Costs of motor car operations have been much reduced as a result of the progress which has been made in the design of bodies. The rigidity and strength of bodies h'ave been greatly increased by modern constructional methods which reduce the number of . componeht parts, and, therefore, the number of joints likely to become > stressed. Modern bodies contain only about -250 parts, compared with 700 parts in those prodiiced a few years ago.