TESTING MOTOR SPIRIT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1036, 29 July 1930, Page 6

TESTING MOTOR SPIRIT

A new method of testing motor spirit and lubricants has been adopted by the Shell Company in England, which virtually tests the spirit under road-working conditions. The method is the only one of its kind in existence, the tests being carried out on a lorry which is specially fitted out as travelling laboratory. The cabin is fitted with four distance-reading thermometers, speedometer and clock (each with trip faces), engine revolution counter, aneroid barometer (to give height and barometric pressure), an atmospheric thermometer, an accelerometer and gradient meter (to check perform ance), and a pointer and dial indicating the position of the throttle at any moment. The petrol tanks are arranged to hold three grades of fuel, and each can be used in turn for testing purposes. Each day 150 miles are covered over standardised routes, and samples of oil are taken at inter vals for laboratory examination. By these means various grades of motor oils and fuels can be tested under actual everyday conditions. The new method is regarded as a vast improvement on the old practice of first testing the lubricant and then sending samples to the laboratory for examination, which entailed both a loss of time and involved the usual difficulty attached to taking a true sample.