Contributions from Drivers and Mechanics.
Page 20
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Ten Shillings Weekly for the Best Communication Received, and One Penny a Line of ten words for anything else published.
We Acknowledge Receipt.
Selected from a number of communications which are intended for these columns, and which we are unable to acknowledge individually, we have letters from the following correspondents under consideration with a view to publication :—" J.H.H." (Royston), " H.B." (Ely),
P.Macl." (Tighnabruaich), " A.S.13." (Doncaster), " E.C." (Eastbourne), " J.N." (PrestOn), and (Southa moon),
Two Months' Experience with a Second-hand Wagon.
[499i " B.D.V." (Chelmsford) writes :—" The driver of the second-hand wagon who contributed to the ' Drivers' ' columns of recent issues of THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR is either pulling your leg ' or exhibiting such skill that he ought to gel an engagement at a musichall. In my opinion, a man who can drive a gear-driven lorry which has a tooth out of the last gear ring and who can get along quite comfortably 'by releasing the clutch each time the broken tooth came round to the pinion, thus letting the momentum of the wagon carry the gearing over the broken place ' should be worth paying to watch."
Save Your Old Chain Rollers.
The sender of the following communication has been awarded the los. prize this week.
kool " C.W." (Winchester) in the following letter discribes a useful practice which he has followed in his repair shop, and an account of which he considers may hiuseful to others who have charge of the repair and upkeep of motor vehicles :—" ln the course of my basilic-. during the year, I have a number of the lighter typt.‘, commercial motor vehicles through my hands for repair and overhaul. In common with other people who have this class of work to handle, I have noticed that a great deal of work has to be put into these machines, in order to take up the slack in the control gear, such as changespeed lovers, brake levers, brackets for operating shafts,
and similar small fittings. In some of the lighter vehicles, which in many cases are not very different from pleasure-car chassis, the makers do not seem to have realised that steering-gear, brake-gear and change-speed gear details receive a tremendous lot of hard knocking about, not only at the hands of drivers and mechanics, but also owing to the fact that they are parts of machines carried on solid rubber tiros, After a year's hard work, most of the little fork ends and operating-rod ends are found to be slack, and are the cause of a lot of unnecessary noise and rattle. Manufacturers would he well advised, in my opinion, when designin.g machines for industrial purposes to provide all levers, brackets and operating rods, which are subject to constant vibration as well as fairly continual operation, with removable steel bushes, which might be either hardened or of bard material, as
scents best to the designer. This initial practice would undoubtedly increase the prime cost, but it would materially facilitate and cheapen subsequent overhauls. The old bushes could be knocked out, and new ones could be driven in in their place, and these, in conjunction with new pins, would tighten up the whole of the operating gear throughout the chassis in such a way that it would be quite as good as new after an overhaul. In order to carry out this idea so far as possible, I have on many occasions adopted the following. NN'here the bosses of levers, brackets and such fittings have been large enough, I have bored them out perhaps 3-r6 of an inch larger in diameter, and I have then forced into these holes hardened steel bushes whose bore is either the same as the old pin, or, if necessary, rather larger, to accommodate a larger pin. This makes a good job, and, moreover, it provides an easy means for subsequent refitting.
" A method which may appeal to many of your readers is one which I have adopted in connection with such repairs as I have described. Instead of throwing away my old roller chains, I have had them taken to pieces, and the parts carefully saved. By selecting those rollers which are not worn,I have been supplied with a good stock of bushes of various useful sizes ready for forcing into the levers in the manner I have described. These rollers are hardened, and if the levers and brackets be suitably bored and then heated, they can in most cases be shrunk on to the rollers. If it is necessary, of course, to drill oil holes through the hushes ; this can he done by softening the rollers and, if it is considered advisable, they can be again hardened.