For DRIVERS, MECHANICS & FOREMEN.
Page 25
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A PRIE 11 01? l'EN 'SHILLINGS is awarded each week to the sender of the best letter which we publish on this page ; all others are paid for at the rate of a penny a one, with an allowance for photographs. All notes are edited before being published. Mention your employer's name, in confidenze, as evidence of good faith. • Address, A. M. and IP„ "The Commercial Motor,' 7-15, Rosebery Avenue, London, E.G. -1.
Lamps Alight. •
On Saturday, December 13th, light your lamps at 4.19 in London, 4.10 in Edinburgh, 4.14 in Newcastle, 4.24 in Liverpool, 4.23 in Birmingham, 4.29 in Bristol, and 5.7 in Dublin.
A Ford son Tractor Repair.
The' sender of the following communication has been awarded the Ws. prize this week.
[2,036] "A.W.R." (Canterbury) writes :—" I have derived considerable benefit from time to time from the hints and tips which have appeared in the " and F." pages of your journal, and the following notes and accompanying sketch (which we have had redrawn.—Ep.), which describe a repair to a Fordson. tractor, /ire meant as much as anything in the way of a reciprocation.
some weekt ago we had a tractor of the type named in for repairs. The connecting rod had broken at the small end and had smashed through the cylinder casting and bottom half of the crank ' case. These two parts had been sent away to bet welded, and upon -being re-erected. they were found to have distorted somewhat, owing apparently to -uneven shrinkage, and it was necessary to reface the end of the case. I procured a. mandrel which was a nice running fit in the end main bearings of the case and long enough to project beyond it at both ends. I fitted it with a couple of collars, one on each side of one of the bearings', so as to prevent it from moving endways. On that end of the mandrel farthest from the facing which had to be trued I fitted a pulley, and set the case and mandrel on the face plate of a shaping machine in such a position that the pulley could. be driven from the cone on the shaper. To the other end of the mandrel I secured, y means of a pair of in. bolts, a pigice of channel steel, to one end of which I secured the tool holder from the shaper, and to the other end a suitable balance weight. I removed the feed handle from the tool holder and substituted a star wheel. A piece of bent wire secured to a part of the crankcase casting in such a Manner that it caught the star wheel each time it came round provided me with an automatic teed for the tool, and my equipment was complete. " With the rig thus described I was able to make a most creditable job of facing up the distorted crankcase, and although it may be a long time before one of your readers comes across a similar mishap in connection with a FordSon crattkcase, the method is applicable to a hundred other jobs of the same kind, hence my feeling that I am in a way helping those who have helped me so 'many times through the, medium of the Drivers' ' page.',
An Autovac Mystery.
We invite comments from our readers on the-occurrence related in the following letter:— {2,037] "A.G.B." (Enfield) writes :—"A short time ago a driver of 'a three-ton .Austin . drove into our garage, switched off his engine, got-clown, and politely informed us that petrol was running from the joints of his exhaust pipes.. When we had-finished laughing at what we took to be a good joke, someone 'went round to have a look at his-. engine, and found that he was speaking no-less than the truth: ," We found on examination that' the lorry was equipped with the Autovic vacuum feed and quickly jumped to the conclusion=the.00rsect one, too; as it proved--that therein lay" the source of the trouble. Well, we took down the apparatus,and found that the float had somehow been punctured, so that the pot -was full af petrol, which, when -the engine ran, was drawn direct into the induction pipe of the engine. The repair was, of course, a simple matter and was quickly carried out. What we want-to know is; however, how was it that the engine-was able. to -run-on each a rich. mixture as must have been going into the cylinders while the float was punctured, and haw was it that the _whole outfit did not catch fire? I should mention that the wagon had been driven in from Covent Garden. to Enfield, a, distance of 15 miles with, so -far as could be ascertained, the petrol flowing throughin the manner which we -observed. Incidentally, we turned out the engine oil, and found that it consisted for the most part of petrol."
"Repairing a Cracked Firebox.
(2,038] • " G.O.L." (Liverpool) writes :—" It sometimes .happenb that a -crack or breakageis not, for some reason or other, amenable to treatment by welding. There are place.s in the firebox of a. steam wagon, for example, that are not accessible to the welding plant without a lotkof disrnantling;.scemuch se that it is frequently advisable, before ,sending for the welder, to ascertain if a suitable 'repair cannot be effected by other means. 'Such a easeoccurred the ther day in connection with one of my steam. 'wagons, and no doubt your readers will be interested to learn how I managed the job. "I drilled two holes, one at each end -of the cTack, tapped them out with a in. Whitworth tap, and fitted a copper stud into each, carefullyrivetingeach one over. I then filled up the intervening space between the two with other studs similarly fitted and so spaced. that each stud touched its neighbour. The job was completed 13Ycaulking and riveting all the studs so that each overlapped the next, and a sound repair was the result." (We -Print this letter as it may catch the eye of a driver or mechanic of the hewer school who does not know of this tip. At the same time, it should be pointed out that the idea is one of the oldest in the engineering 'trade, and has been described and illustrated in at least a hundred different handbooks. We desire to point out that this is noteth-eetype of letter which is desired for this page, which is open to our readers so that they may oontribute letters describing original or novel methods of effecting repairs either on the road or in the shop.—ED.)