USEFUL TIPS FOR STEAM WAGON DRIVERS.
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Two Interesting Letters from Old Contributors to this Page.
A PAGE of suggestions from steam wagon drivers is always of particular interest, and this week's contributions from that source form no excep
tion to the general rule. The most practical and useful letter comes from ' A.J.E." (he wins the chief award of the week), and is concerned mainly with the Atkinson steam wagon. The first of the two hints which it contains, however, is applicable to the majority of steam wagons. It refers to the means for, supporting the tank from the
frame. According to the experience of " A.J.E.," these tanks are not any too accessible, and, whenever it is necessary for any reason or other to remove one, there is always a loss of time owing to the fact that the securing bolts are awkward of access, and that, as a general rule, the body of the wagon has to be lifted before the nuts of those bolts can be reached.
His method of getting over the difficulty is almost sufficiently apparent from the accompanying sketch. It will be observed that he merely cuts the sup porting bands through. at both sides of the tank, riveting to every one of the free ends of band thus exposed short pieces of angle steel, either 21
ins. by 21 ins, by in. or 3 ins. by 3 ins. by .1-in. These pieces of angle serve as lugs, and are drilled to accommodate fin. bolts, which are fitted with castle nuts and split pins. Underneath the tank, and between it and the supporting bands, he puts a layer of
felt, with the object of saving any rivet heads which would otherwise come in contact with the metal of the band and be worn away as the result of the rubbing which naturally results from the inevitable vibration of the wagon as it runs. To compensate for the addi tion of this of felt, hard wood packing pieces thick, are placed between the ends of the bands so that they are clipped by the angle-iron lugs and their respective bolts_
" A.J.E." tells us a most interesting sfory of the difficulty which he had with the steaming of an Atkinson Uniflow wagon. He says that, on one occasion, after re-timing the engine, he ran it first of all, with the control lever in the " forward start" position, and the regulator open but a little. With the levers so set, the running of the engine was perfect. On giving a little more steam, however, it stopped, and precisely the same thing happened when the control lever was set to " forward fast." With a view to discovering the source of the trouble, he removed the exhaust manifold and found that he had entirely eliminated the difficulty. Without this pipe he could run the engine with the regulator in any position, and the control lever also; and that be could change up or down without stopping. He next turned his attention-to the exhaust manifold itself. This was T. shaped, it being understood that that portion of the pipe represented by the flange or top of the T joined the exhaust branches of the cylinders, the stem being the main pipe which conveyed the exhaust steam away from the cylinders. It appeared tO him to he possible that the exhaust from one cylinder could pass from that cylinder to the other, interfering with the piston valve, and passing steam through that valve to the piston ends_ At any rate, however right or wrong he may have been in this assumption, his remedy, that of placing a baffle plate in the centre of the pipe to prevent direct passage of steam from one cylinder to the other and to direct it into the exhaust pipe proper, has proved to be a satisfactory cure.
It will be observed that the baffle
is merely a piece of in. steel plate shaped to fit the inside of the pipe, and held in place by a jaw, to which it is riveted, and which passes through a hole drilled in the exhaust pipe to be nutted up on the other side. He also sends us a sketch of a design of pipe which, if employed by the makers, would overcome this trouble.
SIMPLE instructiens for Wing a speedometer to an overtype steamer are embodied hi a letter from "E.3.," ' of Sandbach. In scheming out the attachment this correspondent has kept in view the necessity for so fixing the speedometer and parts that, on the one hand they shall not suffer from the effects of vibration, and on the other shall not diminish accessibility of the parts of the steam wagon.
In the case of a wagon fitted with a two-speed gear such as the Foden, the high-speed wheel, which is the smaller, should be used to drive the speedometer. To this end, the plate which holds the pin, universal joint, and spindle, for the speedometer driving wheel, should be secured to the angle iron and bolts which are fastened to the main channel of the steam wagonframe to hold the expansion plate in place. It will he found that the fastening can readily be arranged to afford facilities for easy adjustment of the engagement of the speedometer driving wheel with the high-speed gearwheel on the wagon. This is important, otherwise undue noise and wear will occur.
The speedometer itself can be secured to one of the cab stanchions by means of the split bracket which is generally supplied with the instrument. Li that position it is easily within view of the driver, who can at any time, while standing in the bunker, note the speed at which he is travelling.
In order to determine the number of teeth which are required on the small fibre wheel on the speedometerit is necessary to know the number of teeth on the two chain sprockets, the diameter of the road wheel, measured outside the tyre, and the number of teeth on the high-speed gearwheel. The lastnamed, on d Foden wagon, s usually 95. If it be, and if, as is usual, the road wheel is fitted with 1,050 mm. tyres, then, with a 12-tooth sprocket pinion and 32-tooth wheel, the fibre wheel will need to have 21 teeth. If, however, there be 15 teeth on the pinion and 32 on the wheel, then the number of ieeth required is 17.