CYCLING AND MOTORING.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1916, Page 9

CYCLING AND MOTORING.

xrcws AND XOTES. It is reported from France tliat immediately after (the war some of the leading French motor manufacturers will combine to produce a. cairl which will be capable of competing with, the cheap American car on a price basis. Arrangements are said to be im hand for the formation of a. £10,000,000 company in Lyons for this purpose. The Renault and Berliet concerns are said to be interested"in it.

A Frenchman lias successfully designed a means of enabling those who have lost both legs to drive a'motorcar. The clutch pedal is coupled up to a wtheel mounted on the steering column, and the brake which is usually applied by the foot is operated' by the ■back of tho driver's scat. Ife has only to press hard against the back of the seat to bring it into action.

The French Government, being dissatisfied with the poor petrol consumption of the American lorries, fitted different carburetters to investigate the problem fon themselves. When this data was secured, the authorities held a competition among French carburetter manufacturers, and three firms competed l — Zenith and Solex. The winner was the Claudel. 'The statistics' showed that the 3J-ton Reo consumed petrol at the rate of one gallon per 4.52' miles. With the Claudel the consumption, was oniy 7.30 miles per gallon. One way in 'which the motor-car is helping our Russian Allies is by relieving the strain on the railway between Archangel and. Petrograd. service of military lorric.s is now in operation on the GOO miles of road between the two places, all of which was newly constructedl for the purpose The sum of £3,040,142 was paid last year by the motorcar owners of the United States in registration fees alone.

There ;wv; few motorists who really realise what an influence tlio proper adjustment of a carburetter has in the running and power of a petrol engine. Given two cars fitted with identical sized engines the same adjustment of carburetter does not necessarily give equal results. Such tilings as compression, valve adjustment, speed of piston, etc., account for varying results. This is one of the weak points in most of the popular carburetters on the market. They are built to standard for various ranges of h.p. engines, and' only after juggling with various sized nipples, choke tubes, etcs., can one get sometiling approaching satisfactory, results This entails a deal of labor that the average motorist will not face, preferring to let matters stand, and he generally gets average results plus a considerable wastage of petrol, which runs into a fair amount per annum. Experienced motorists have for years recognised the fact that something more was needed in the existing makes of carburetters on the market, andi that something was the provision for outside adjustment of the petrol supply to the atomising chamber of the carburetter—a simple arrangement that would enable the driver by the turn of a lever or milled nut to give more or less petrol as desired. Such a carburetter has been designed and patented by a Melbourne Motor Engineer. It has been registered as the "0.C.M.," and from experiments conducted! on various makes and powers of cars it really locks as if the newcomer is going to fill a muchneeded want. The "0.C.M.," which is being manufactured in Australia, is one of the simplest carburetters made. It gives remarkable petrol results, very flexible engine running, and can be adjusted whilst the engine is running by any motorist without the use of tools to suit not only his engine's requirements but the climatic condition. Running with the wind the petrol supply can be almost cut right out, whilst for plugging into wind or traversing hilly country provision is easily and immediately mada to increase the supply. A few figures illustrate the difference this adjustable carburetter makes in petrol consumption. A 30-h.p. Opel with its standard carburetter gave an average, mileage of 1.0 miles per gallon, and with the O.C.M. fitted it ran 23; a 10.14-h.p. P.X. mileage per gallon was raised from IS to 2(1; a 14-18-h.p. F.N. 19 to 27; a 20-h.p. Ford 20 to 32; a Ford' delivery van 17 to 25 ] / s ; a 10-20-h.p. Itala 19 to 22,; and a 70-h.p. Mercedes from 8 to 14 miles. These figures are authentic, and were not obtained by freak driving, the cars being driven under normal conditions. 1 Such an increase naturally means a considerable saving in one's petrol bill. Another welcome feature in this new carburetter is the ease with which it can be cleaned; in fact, a choked or stufied up petrol nipple is well nigh impossible, and most motorists will appreciate what that means. The O.C'.M. is to be marketed at an , early date in various sizes for either . vertical or horizontal engines. The recommendation' of the Publicity Committee of the Motor-cycle and Allied Trades Association (U.S.A.) that lacing on machines of the freak' type, ■ sueli as those with eight-valve engines, ■ etc., should be confined to tracks of not \ less than two miles, is already finding < support amongst American manufactur- i ers, who 'have hitherto supported this ! class of competition. One of the first i to do so is the Barley-Davidson, whose decision has been hastened by a fatal i accident to one of their factory riders, : though not altogether due to that fact, i Probably no other problem in tlhe 1 motor industry has been engaging sucih serious consideration as (that of the 1 self starter, says the Light Car. With ' the example of American enterprise, Which has almost standardised the electric starter, before them, the British manufacturers are frequently accused of being apathetic in the matter, but this is far from correct. The fact is that it is much more difficult to provide a unit so complicated that it is positively proof against mal-treatment andi can be relied upon implicitly like any other part of the car. We should not care to 'say that American manufacturers have produced a perfect system, or anything approaching reliability. The difficulty is increased by the fact that a iittle inattention, such as the neglect of batteries, or careless driving, as, for instance, allowing the starter to drive the car, may involve a serious break-down, which would be altogether beyond anyone but an expert to diagnose and put right. The construction is so delicate that it calls for finer work than is shown in any other part of the ear, and therefore the increased cost of the installation is of itself a serious matter. There is the very great difficulty of designing a reliable, silent and practically everlasting type of transmission, for it is scarcely sound to add one more feature to the car that requires constant attention and periodic renewal. Electric starting appliances are as yet in their infancy, and embrace many problems that only a life study of electrical mechanics can solve. That it will be solved we have no doubt, and pro-

bably the. English electrical self-starter will develop a reputation for soundness of design and reliability under normal conditions of neglect and misuse that will be unequalled by anything that American manufacturers can produce. It is a feature that is badly missing in light-car design.