FORD VAN POINTERS.
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By R. T. Nicholson (Author of "The Book of the Ford ").
/AM every day getting evidence that a great many van drivers do not know "the first thing" about
their electrical outfit. It is high time that all such drivers got the elementary notions into their noddles. " Ignorance " is not "bliss" in the end : it means damage and outlay. Here is a specimen letter showing how dense the ignorance may be :—
446.—Ignorance of Electrical Matters.
"The electrical starter en my van responds to the foot switch, 'but does not engage the engine. I can at times distinctly hear the motor humming. At other times there is no response till I have kept the switch down for nearly five minutes. Another difficulty I have is the headlamps. These will not light up until I have started the engine, and ,even then I have to race it to get de cent lights. Just as soon as I close the throttle the lamps start bobbing in and out, and: when I switch off they go out altogether. The van is a 1920 model, and t h e accumulator has been charged once."
Now, I am not going to rub it in, and tell the writer of this he ought to know better. Many drivers pick up their knowledge in a very haphazard fashion ; they never have a chance of mastering. the electrical points concerned, because there isnobody about to instruct them, but I may be pardoned for drawing attention to the fact that there is now a " Book of the Ford Electrical Equipment," which deals thoroughly with the whole subject, and which makes ignorance pretty nearly inexcusable.
The driver in question is in real trouble, but evidently does not know the extent of it. Fancy daring to keep the foot switch down for five minutes! Poor battery ! Fancy, too, those bobbing headlights, when ane of the first symptoms of electrical danger is the variation of the headlights with engine speed ! Fancy, again, the emptiness of the statement that the aceumulator of a 1920 model has been charged once! I have sent him a kindly letter of advice, though I could not, of course, tell him in that letter everything he should know. I have had to refer him to my book.
Drivers of vans, take this, please, as rock-bottom fact.---Your electrical department will not run "on its own." It needs your intelligent co-operation. If you fail to give it, there will be serious troubles and heavy expenses in the not very long run. The mischief of it is that a new van will, in its electrical department, behave perfectly without a scrap of attention for quite a time, !encouraging the driver to believe that no attention will ever be needed. So he fools himself into the belief that, since all is well, all will be well for evermore.
Nix! The battery calls for regular attention—as regular attention, though not quite so much of it, as the engine. You lubricate your engine regularly, because that is common sense; machinery cannot be
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Fig. 285. On the left a clinical thermometer, and on the right a hydrometer for testing the specific gravity of the acid solution in °a
battery expected to run without oil. You do nt worry to feed your batterywith distilled water from time to time, and to give it the other little attentions that it needs, because "a battery is a bag of tricks, with little or no 'common sense' about it; it can leek after ieself."
Mr. Driver, I put it to you personally—not that I suspect you personally of reckless, careless ignorance of your electrical outfit—do you know how to user and..do you regularly use, a hydrometer for testing that battery? Have you such a thing belonging to you? Yet the test of a driver's real electrical knowledge is the use -of a hydrometer for testing the battery. Only by. periodical hydrometer tests can the condition of the battery be known ; and only if the condition of the battery is known can it be properly treated. Get that big fact printed in capital letters on your, brain cells !
447.—Battery Testing with a Hydrometer.
. For the rest there is my "Book of the Ford Electrical Equipment" shouting for your attention ; but whether you buy it or not, do get hold of that vital fact, that the test of battery condition is by hydrometer, which shows the specific gravity of the electrolyte. When the doctor comes, to see his patient-, he uses a thermometer to test the temperature of that patient's blood. Too high or too low a reading tells the doctor that something is radically wrong. An irregular hydrometer reading tells the driver that something is radically wrong with the battery. The human patient has a ,big advantage over the battery. The sick man knows that he is sick, and calls the doctor in to make the thermometer test; the poor battery is not conscious of its own weakness, though it shows symptoms of trouble in many ways (such as those described by my coxrespondent in the letter quoted). You °ugh:, to know what those symptoms mean When they occur ; but independently of your knowing what they mean, you ought long since to have had warnings---Ircnn hydrometer readings—if they were due. And you are the doctor in this case.
No, I cannot go into the matter fully here ; that would mean my writing that book all over again. All I want to emphasize here is the fact that the battery is the heart of the electrical system, that it needs proper attention all the time—at short intervals, that, without such attention, trouble. must come—serious trouble that may cost alot of money to set right.
448.—Reverse as Brake.
I am in trouble! From time to time I have advocated use of the reverse as brake and now a reader who did as I told him has smashed up his reverse drum in consequence. What have I got to say about it He wants me to caution drivers against the . use of the reverse as a brake..
Nevertheless, I stand my ground : the reverse, provides a really efficient: brake, if sensibly used. By "sensibly used," I mean :—
(1) It must not be roughly or suddenly applied, particularly if the load is heavy. (2) It must only be applied when the high-speed is in: that is to say, it must not be, applied except when the hand-brake lever isright forward, and the clutch pedal right back. (I have given this caution time after time.) What one has to remember is this : For the reverse properly to act as a brake, its band must drag on its drum: it must not seize it and hold it. Exactly the same is true of the foot brake. • If you apply it so roughly that it suddenly seizes and holds its drum, you will smash things up, or risk doing so.;
In the ease of the reverse, however, the smash is much more likely to occur, and to be a worseesmash when it does occur, simply because when the reverse drum is held, the action, of the gearing is. not merely to stop forward movement, hut to reverse it—to send you running backwards.
The foot brake and the reverse (when used as a. brake) should, then, drag on their respective drums —not hold them. When the reverse is used as a reverse, the band should seize and hold the drum.' Of course, conditions then are different, and there is no risk of a smash, simply because you start reversing from rest.
The reader who asks that I should call off my instructions as to use of the reverse as a.hrake says that such use is quite unnecessary, as there is plenty of braking power if the ignition current is switched off, and the. engine run on slow speed.
True: there is plenty of braking effect; but there is also plenty of engine fouling causecl.hy such means—particularly if .the throttle -is kept closed. If the throttle is kept open, on the other hand, you
get your cylinders full of, " gas,',.. so' when you switch on again, you are' pretty sure‘ to have a big explosion in your exhaust pipe and silencer—which means a big ,strain on the ".partssconcernecl." .
Igrant you that it is a good thing to switch, off the ignition, and run downhill against slow speed if you have an extra-air fitment on tap." Then you have the best of all brakes—air-compression, which is beautifully gentle and' forceful in its action. They stop railway trains by that.means. They also stop them :by means of a vacuum brake—which is partly what,you are trying to do ifyou run downhill with closed throttle and ignition cut off: but with the motor that is rank bad practice.