MOTOR AND CYCLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 May 1922, Page 11

MOTOR AND CYCLE.

.40TES OF INTEREST. Bad luck attended Mr. Boyd Edkins in his attempt on the Brisbane—Sydney motor car record last week. In endeavoring to negotiate the almost impassable rocky track up Spicer’s Gap on the Liverpool Ranges, a piece of outstanding rock crashed a hole into the bottom of the crank-case, with the result that the sump would not hold oil. After vainly attempting to patch up the trouble, the journey had to be abandoned. The holder of the record, Mr. F. Eager, came down the “Gap” in his successful drive, but it is a different proposition tackling the rocky pass in the opposite direction. The reason why record aspirants take this route is because it shortens the journey by some 40 miles. The regular course crossing the Liverpool Range is up the Tollbar climb to Toowoomba. That, with the shorten ag days and the rainy season coming along, the chances of getting this record before the spring are diminishing. Most devices for using the motor car as a stationary engine require either the jacking up oi the rear end or the removal of one or both rear wheels. The latest style adopted in America is free from both these necessities. The car is simply backed up an inclined run-way i until the rear wheels drop into a cradle formed by two small driven wheels with the auxiliary mechanism at each side. These little wheels are formed from heavy pressed metal, each half being made separately and the two then riveted together in the centre. The reason for the curious construction is, of course, the desire that the wheel shall form a cradle for the rear wheels of the car, without possessing itself the exces-

e weight that it would have if solid. The total weight of the entire auxiliary apparatus —driven wheels, shafts, runways, etc. —is but 163 pounds. It is amply heavy enough to transmit the full power delivered to it, but still light enough to carry around readily. The only strains on the car when it is driving machinery through this arrangement are the ordinary ones of road driving. Un account of the small diameter of the driven wheels, a “road speed” of 12-15 miles per hour by the rear end of the car will deliver power to the shaft at very high speed. If more work is put on the power shaft than it cair properly deliver, the tar wheels will merely be thrown forward off the power shaft and on the idler instead of out of the cradle entirely. When it is desired to move the car off the cradle, the power shaft is locked by means of a pawl and the thing is done at once. The driven wheels will take any tyre up to five inches diameter.

Many motorists, when washing their cars, find that a little kerosene added to the water greatly assists in getting the body clean and bright. Nothing can beat it for making the best of really old paint or enamel, on which any amount of work and polish will never be repaid by a corresponding improvement in appearance, but it is a shame to use it on a brand new ear, which with the aid of plenty of water and soap will be able to do without paraffin for a couple of seasons. Some motorists use wax preparations for polishing the body work. Kerosene should not be used where this is the practice, for it will quickly remove the skin of the polish.

Many motor cyclists seem to lose sight of the fact that the big.powered machine usually means a shorter life. Engine repairs and adjustments seem to be a frequent occurrence, and complete overhauls an annual necessity. The writer has heard motor cyclists lament that their 1912 machines ran for years without the slightest trouble, so why should their 1921 models require attention?

Well, you cannot have it both ways. A 2J h.p. engine developing 5 h.p. on the brake is comparatively inefficient, and with its large and heavy working parts, will go on chunking its way through life for many, many years. But if the same engine develops 10 b.h.p., it follows, broadly speaking, that there is double the strain on the bearings and other moving parts. In addition to this, it is extremely unlikely that the engine would develop this high brake-horse-power with the same “large and heavy \ working parts.” In order to get the increased b.h.p., these parts are lightened and reduced in size wherever possible, so that not only is there a double strain, but, again, broadly speaking, there is less strength to resist it.