The Motor Drivers News.
Page 25
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A Piston-ring Dodge.
• " E.H." (Wandsworth) sends the following hiet While I was overhauling my wagon recenth. , I found that a set of the piston rings required renewing. I took . the rings out and showed them to the foreman, who directed me to apply to the storekeeper for the new ones. went to the stores, taking the old rings with me, and asked for a new set. In some way or another, one of the rings was unfortunately broken before the new set was _handed to me, and, when the storekeeper went to get . another lot, he found that the stock had run out, and there was not a new ring in the place. I was naturally in a hole, because of having broken one of the old rings. I got over the difficulty by wrapping asbestos tape round the groove, which ought to have beenoccupied by the ring, and I used plenty of blacklead to lubricate the asbestos. The dodge was quite successful, and the asbestos tape lasted for 15 -days until the new rings were delivered."
The Etiquette of the Road.
" J.S." (Watford) writes :-" I should like to relate an -experience • I had recently whilst driving my steam wagon. I was just leaving St. Albans, with a trailer attached, and -had travelled a short distance on the way when I was stopped by a gentleman who told me that a little further -ahead was a steam roller which had stuck upon a nasty which leads out of the town toward Watford. The roller was unable to move owing to the greasiness of the road surface. I went on to about 20 yards front the scene -of action, and I then walked up to the driver to find out if I could do anything to help him—we drivers always help one another in difficulties; it is the understood etiquette of the road. The driver asked me to help him get the roller off the middle of the roadway, as it was in the way of all traffic. After a considerable amount of skidding and sliding about, we managed to get the roller to one side of the road; we then turned our attention to the 3-ton living-in van, and a water cart that had about a ton of water in its -tank. After a lot of trouble with pieces of chain and belts, at length managed to get these two trailers fixed to the back of the steam wagon, because the driver of the roller could manage to get his machine up the hill if it did not have to tow any additional weight. I found th-at the steam wagon was as had as the other vehicle when it had the trailers tacked on behind it, and to add to these troubles, there was, by this time, a large crowd of people surrounding us. When they f-.4.91V the mess we were in, they started laughing and making rude remarks. One man went so far as to say that we all ought to be in Colney Hata for trying to make a tiny steam wagon pull such a load up the hill. We, of course, took no notice of their insulting remarks. At last I got down and put the differential lock in :gear as a last resource, and then I put a lot of coke upon -lhe ground in front of the driving wheels to make the wheels bite. Then, when ail was in readiness, I came round to the front of the wagon in order to mount the footplate, and found that a costermonger had backed his don.. key and barrow up to the front of the wagon, and had connected the two by a piece of string, offering to pull me to the top of the hill for a consideration. There was a huge laugh among the spectators and, of course, I had to join in it. After Pocking the differential, we made another trial, and I am glad to so' that we were successful, as we got up the hill with the following vehicles trailing behind the wagon : my own trailer; the steam-roller man's living van; and the water cart. I may say that the secondmotion shaft had been recently broken and welded together again by a firm known to most of your readers, and I think that it is very good testimony to the manner in which steam wagons are built that they will stand such a lot of knocking about. I may conclude by saying that the roller did not get up the hill that night, but had to wait until the next morning, when it got up after some difficulty, and proceeded to its destination somewhere in South Wales. A steam wagon is Certainly better than a roller at climbing greasy hills, and it would be a good thing if some of those who are ready to sneer at the capabilities of steam wagons N.6 ou Id first find out their capabilities, before they set themselves up as authorities."
A Magneto Trouble.
" J.T." (Bath) sends the following letter :—" I think the account of some trouble I once had with a magneto may be of interest. The magneto in question was fitted to the engine of a double-deck motorbus which I was driving. I was proceeding on my route, nearly nine miles from my destination, when, without warning, the engine came to an abrupt stop. I had a look round and, on examination, found that the magneto was at fault. I saw brass dust on the cover, and this had evidently been passed outwards from the interior. I took off the end, brass bearing and found that the armature was disconnected from the inside end plate, as three of the screws had apparently worked themselves loose, and had then become ground up. The last screw was broken off level with the armature core. After I had wiped off all the dust, the next thing was to evolve some method whereby I could get the vehicle to its destination. It suddenly struck me that I could take two alternate screws from the outside end, and put them in two of the holes which had been occupied by the damaged ones; the four screws would then be distributed in such a way, that there would be a chance for me to get home. I did the job, reset the armature, started up the engine, and resumed the journey. The whole of the delay, from the time when the engine stopped until it was restarted, was about 5o minutes, and I had no further trouble during the remainder of the journey home, at the end of which a proper job was made of the repair."