MOTOR AND CYCLE.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 June 1922, Page 11

MOTOR AND CYCLE.

EXPENSIVE NEGLECT. The value of the batteries that are destroyed every year in Taranaki through neglect is considerable. The smallest of these batteries used in connection with the self-starting of cars would run into about £l4 and the 'bigger ones about £l2l. A great many of the ear owners never trouble about the accumulator until the lights fail, or the ‘battery refuses to start up the ear. It is only then that they remember it is on the car, instead of attending to it each week, or at least once a fortnight. Refill it with distilled water or keep the termnials cleaned and free from corosion. A great many are destroyed through falls or not being sufficiently secured in the box, with the result that the separators between the plates get broken and shorts result. New plates, positive or negative, cost half as much as a new battery. If the battery is overcharging it will also destroy the plates very quickly. A car that is in use all day long should not charge at more than about 4 to 0 amps, and a car only run a couple of times a week about 8 to 10 amps. If one cell is bad it will not hold the charge and a weak accumulator will be the result. The small cost of about 10s will 'buy a hydrometer. Any owner can test his own battery. GENERAL ITEMS. Ten tons is the maximum weight for motor trucks on highways in Ohio. Hichwavs of from thirty-three to

fifty-five feet in width are under construction in China. Because the rubber tyres act as nonconductors, the motor-ear is the safest place in the world during a thunder storm, The explosive force of gasoline, properly mixed with air and compressed, is fourteen times greater than dynamite. An added tax of from one cent to two cents for gasoline is now imposed on motor vehicles in fourteen States in the American Union. The total number of passenger mctors built in America during last year was 1,535.000, as compared with 1,883,150 for 1920. In Japan, when anything gosy wrong with an automobile, owners are instructed to immediately notify the police who will render whatever assistance they can. An automobile in Belgium is known as a “suelpanrdeloosz ond trspoorveg- [ petrolcumry tuig,” literally translated, it means “Fast—horseless-without-rails-petrol vehicle.” France had a registry of 237.125 automobiles and 50,783 motor-cycles in 1920, according to official figures. Of the 237.125 automobiles registered 79,078 were commercial vehicles and 158,049'were touring cars. Facts about what happens under a roadway a-s traffic passes over it are being obtained by the use of an ingenious device perfected 'by the bureau of public roads. The device is one of the new instruments developed to discover what thickness of roadbed should be constructed for heavy or light traffic on various kinds of soil.