Light Up Your Lamps At — 5.36 on Thursday ;
Page 20
Page 21
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5.35 on Friday ; 5.33 on Saturday; 5.29 on Monday ; 5.27 on Tuesday ; 5.25 on Wednesday next.
Enlarging the Capacity of the Lathe-,chuck.
[1366] " H.B." (Cheshire) writes :—" You have published from time to time, in your 'D. and M.' pages, many good tips which are particularly useful
to machinists ; perhaps the following will interest your readers.
"I am working in a small machine shop, and often have to devise means for finishing off work for which we have not suitable plant at hand, and have to set up some kind of rig to enable me to carry out the machining, etc. The latest thing in this direction which I have found necessary to accomplish is to increase the holding c.apacity of an old lathe-chuck which we have in the shop. I send you a sketch [We have had this redrawn.—ED.] of the simple means adopted to this end. The sketch almost explains itself, and it will be seen that, to increase the radius of the chuck, four extra blocks were machined, and rectangular holes were provided to enable the blocks to fit over the standard jaws. The original capacity of the lathe was only 10 ins., and with these additional jaws I can now turn work up to 14 ins."
A "Thank You" Letter re Benzole Experiences.
[1367] " A. Cross " (Manchester) writes :—" I cannot refrain from thanking `J.W.,"M.A.W.,"A.H.H.' and others for the interesting and informative letters supplied by them on the benzole question, which I recently raised with the 'C.M.' in the D.3/1.) columns, which you have so kindly published. " The experiences related by each driver all uniformly corroborate in respect of the satisfactory results which are attained when using benzole on commercial vehicles.
"What I suggest we now want is evidence that we not only have a big supply of this spirit available, D4 but that the supply will be obtainable for many years in England without being taxed to death. " Let me thank the Editor of the C.M.' for the publicity given to my benzole letter and to the other readers' excellent replies. The correspondence shows the searching care with which your paper is read."
To Make a Road-wheel Withdrawer.
[1368] " J.B." (Harringay) writes :—" Drivermechanics very often have a difficulty in detaching the road wheels from their machines during overhauling. I have written for you a description of the method which I myself adopt and which is within the reach of all drivers who carry a, lifting-jack on their machines, and by which a wayside repair in this direction can be effected with little trouble."
"The necessary articles which are required for the withdrawing device are :—An ordinary lifting-jack, a piece of fairly stout chain or rope, and a block of wood, and this is how the tackle is used to effect:— The road wheel which it is required to remove is jacked up in the ordinary way, then take off the axle cap and unscrew all nuts necessary and the stubborn wheel is then pulled off by fixing one end of the rope or chain to a horizontal spoke of the wheel ; this should be tied near the hub, then tie the other end to the opposite spoke, leaving plenty of room to get the lifting-jack between the rope and hub. The block of wood is then placed between the base of the jack and the axle spindle, ensuring that the lifting-face of the jack engages well with the rope or chain. The jack should then be screwed out in the ordinary manner, and the wheel will be slowly but surely raised from its tight position."
Truing Up Connecting-rods.
[1369] " R. T." (Bedford Hill) writes :—" While recently carrying out an engine overhaul, the uneven manner in which the big-end brasses had been worn seemed to indicate that the connecting-rods themselves were not straight, and not feeling very satisfied with the results obtainable by using a spirit level
on the top of the piston for testing the rods, the method generally resorted to, I made two ma.ndrels, one for the big-end bearing, and the other for the gudgeon-pin bearing. Supporting the big end on the marking-off table with the aid of a pair of V blocks, as shown in the sketch which I send you [We have had this redrawn.—ED.], I tested the gudgeon• pin mandrel for parallelism with a scribing block. "As I had anticipated, the rods were very much out of truth, and, before going on any further, they were straightened out by being squeezed in the vice. At the bent portion I interposed short pieces of round har, as illustrated, placing them in proper position according to the direction in which the red was bent. This process was carried out until the rods, on being scribed up, showed both bearings to be in parallel. When the rods were trued up there was absolutely no danger of the bearings becoming 'pulled,' or of any side-play movement of the rod on the crankshaft during the running of the engine."
Assisting Vaporization.
The sender of the following communication has been awarded the 10s. prize this week.
[1370] " E.F.H." (New York) writes :—" By the way of encouraging his drivers in the habit of keeping fuel costs as low as possible, my employer recently offered a bonus of 10 dollars monthly to the driver who recorded the greatest mileage on the lowest fuel consumption.
"There are ten of us drivers, and we each immediately set out to make various kinds of adjustments to the carburetter, so as to ' skimp' the mixture. In some cases even smooth running in the engine was sacrificed in order to obtain good results with regard lo fuel consumption. Many little ` kinks' were tried, such as fitting an auxiliary air inlet to the induction pipe, which could he operated from the driver's seat, and also great precaution was taken to prevent the least possible leakage of fuel. "In my case, however, I did not care to sacrifice smooth running of the motor for the sake of effecting greater economy, so I commenced operations by fitting a device which proved very satisfactory and which required no attention whatever on the part of the driver. I send you a sketch-1We have had this redrawn.—En.)—which shows the means I adopted to assist vaporization.
"The vaporizing device consists of nothing more than a piece of copper tubing bent to form a helix. The tube was well annealed and went to the required spiral on an ordinary broom handle. Two halfinch holes were then drilled at each P n d of the inr1,10 tion pipe through one of which the spiral was threaded. 1 then made two small brass bushings and screwed one into each hole, which was tapped for the purpose. These bushings held the sniral in position. After fitting it up I sweated the tubing to the bushes to make good a gas-tight job.
"An ordinary pipe-union was fitted to each end of the coil to enable me to couple up two pieces of piping, one to lead to the water-jacket around the vaive pock.et of the cylinder, and the other to the water-circulating pump, thus forming a hot-water lead from the jacKet, through the coil, and back to the pump. The device accomplished two things. The helix set the incoming gases whirling, which in itself has a tendency more thoroughly to incorporate the particles of petrol, thus producing a thoroughly homogeneous mixture, and at the same time the heat precluded the possibility of any condensation of the gases when vaporized, on the comparatively cold walls of the induction pipe. " I am pleased to say I won the prize, covering 1521 miles during the month on a total fuel consumption of 190.1 gallons, running on an average eight miles to the gallon, which, you will agree, for a heavy truck running over roads which are none too good, is a very satisfactory performance."
OVerileaS IntereSt.
[1371] " R.V.L." (Toronto) writes :—" I am sending this setter tor publication in your D. and M.' pages, tamaing probably my experience, whilst doing heavy steam-haulage work in Canada, will interest fellowdrivers living in the old country.
"There are several of us out here from England, in the employ of both steam and petrol vehicle owners, and when we meet, we always have a talk over the
latest copy of the which reaches us. I can assure you, too, that we are very keen to get each week's issue.
"The machine I drive is a Foden five-ton tip-wagon, which is giving excellent results. It is one of three, all Foden's, owned by the Ontario National Brick Co., Toronto ; they are all employed in hauling bricks to different building sites in and around the city. The photograph I enclose—[Which we reproduce. —ED.]— shows No. 1 wagon loading up at one of the company's sidings ; each load generally numbers 31X)0 bricks, and as the average weight of a brick is 5i lb. this means a total load of more than 7. tons. "We do both our own driving and steering, but two men for each machine are kept at the siding to load up. I can manage, on an average, six loads a day, 18.000 bricks, each journey, at present, being about three miles radius. We use smokeless coal, and the price is 85 cents per 100 lb. and, working 12 hours a day, each machine Uses about 200 lb. of fuel. One tank of water lasts all day. " Lubricating oil is pretty cheap here, special cylinder oil costs 70 cents a gallon, and engine oil is 60 cents a gallon. I must say the roads about here are very bad, and the machines have some stiff haulage work to do in consequence ; as you may perhaps know, they build first, and then make the roads after, BO we have to get to the building site as best we can.
"In Toronto city, passenger-transport vehicles are doing good work touring round. I see them every day and am on quite friendly terms with all the drivers."