HINTS ON MAINTENANCE.
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How to Get the Best out of a Vehicle, to Secure Reliability and to Avoid Trouble.
681.—Preventing Breakage of Bolts in the Oldsmobile Brake Drums.
Trouble is sometimes experienced owing to the breakage of the bolts which hold the brake drums on to the rear wheels of the type T Oldsmobile. On this machine the drive is transmitted by two shafts and pinions to internal gear rings, which are mounted within the rear brake drums.
What happens if a bolt breaks is that the inside part may, and often does, drop into the gear ring, and most probably damage, perhaps irretrievably, the gear ring and its pinion.
To obviate this trouble it is necessary to prevent the possibility of broken bolts dropping into the ring. This can be achieved by fitting over the bolt heads a steel ring made of sheet metal, 1-16th in. thick, and secured by 3-16th in. screws, care being taken that these are so secured that there is no possibility of their loosening.
682.—Dismantling the Steering Gear of the 3-4-ton A.E.C. Chassis.
There does not appear to be much room to spare for the dismantling of the steering gear on the 3-4-ton A.E.C., and users have, in some cases, come to the conclusion that to do so it is necessary to remove the engine. This is a mistaken impression. If the job be tackled in the right way, the box can be taken out and re-erected quite easily.
To do so, the following procedure should be followed : Disconnect the ignition control, remove the steering wheel and the side steering rod from the drop arm. Slack off the clamping bolt at the top of the steering box by which the column is held in position, and drive the column up until it is about 6 ins, clear of the top box. The front axle should then be jacked up until the wheels are 6 ins, clear of the ground.
The bolts which hold the steering box in position on the frame can then be removed, when it will be found ii46
that there is sufficient ground clearance to allow the steering shaft to be drawn out of the column. Reerection is effected by reversing these operations.
683.—Facilitating the Insertion of Pistons in the Engine of the 3-ton Guy.
It occasionally proves a somewhat difficult task to replace the pistons and rings in the cylinders of the Guy 3-ton engine from the fact that the champfer at the mouth of each cylinder is very slight. • Now, it will be noted that each gudgeon pin is retained by a spring ring which encircles the piston, and it has been found quite a simple matter to replace a piston if this spring ring be used as a keep for the other piston rings. The spring ring is sufficiently wide to cover all three piston rings at the same time, and by covering the rings with the spring keep it is a simple matter to push the piston into the cylinder, when the keep is, of course, forced back.
The idea can be employed when replacing the cylinder block, as when each spring ring has performed its work in the same manner it can be pushed down into its own groove.
684.—Maintaining Brake Efficiency on the 4-ton Dennis.
One. of our contributors, who is running a small fleet of 4-ton Dennis vehicles, has found that oil sometimes leaks through the ends of the rear axle and, dropping into the rear brake drums, reduces their braking efficiency.
The loss of the oil was not serious, but the reduction in the braking power was. Therefore lie fitted small scoops to the spring carriers, these being made of stout plate and secured in position by the fin. greasers. In addition a fin, hole was drilled at an angle through the bottom of the spring bracket into the crevice within it, so that the oil oozed through this hole into the scoop, and was then thrown clear of the wheels by about 6 ins.
The whole job of drilling, making the scoops and fixing for each vehicle, took just over one hour.