STARTING A CAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 June 1938, Page 5

STARTING A CAR

The mechanism used in most motor cars today for the engagement of the self-starter pinion with the teeth of the fly-wheel is one of those rather crude engineering compromises which has proved quite satisfactory in practice.

Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that the mechanism does engage with the stationary flywheel teeth with rather more of a shock than is desirable, and when, as sometimes happens, the strong coil spring designed to absorb some of this shock breaks, the impact of the engagement is sufficiently severe to play some havoc with the teeth of both the self-starter and flywheel gears.

For these reasons the announcement by one of the most prominent English manufacturers of. electrical equip? ment that it has developed a new form of starter drive is of more than ordinary interest. The standing of the firm in question is sufficiently high to indicate that the drive probably will be found on a number of 1938 models. The new device is a modification of the type now used, but the strong shock-absorbing coil spring is eliminated, and. its place taken by a rubber and a friction device.

The design is rather difficult to explain without the aid of diagrams, but without going into technicalities it may be stated that in it provision

has been made to overcome the difficulty met with when the engine stops in such a position that the starter gear, in endeavouring to enter into engagement, ..meets the flywheel teeth end-on, a difficulty which normally can only be overcome by engaging a gear and rocking the car so that the engine is moved slightly. In the new device the starting motor is safe--guarded against such excessive strains as are produced by a back-firing engine, and it is said that, no matter how high the strain imposed on the drive, no damage can result.