Contributions from Drivers and Mechanics.
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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 :—" G.K.W." (Southfield), " \N.H." (Huddersfield), " R.F." (Stockport), " A.W." (Bath), " E.W." (Huddersfield), " R.J." (Westbury), " H.L." (Islington), " C.T." (Fulham), " E.S." (Victoria Park), " E." (St. Austell), " WOLSELEY DRIVER " (Canning Town), and " HABBAKUK " (Kennington).
Making a Valve from a Bolt.
The sender of the following communication has been awarded the los. prize this week.
(Fool A correspondent" S.O.B." (Regent's Park) sends us a description of the makeshift he adopted in order to provide himself with a de-Dion inlet valve :—" The following account of how I made a temporary inlet valve for a de-Dion engine may perhaps be the means of helping some other mechanic or driver out of a similar tight
corner. On the occasion about which I am writing I was employed on the night shift at a L.G.O. Company's garage. One night a driver came in and reported that his engine was only working on three cylinders. Upon examination I found that one of the inlet valves had broken across the cotter hole. This was a very usual breakage to occur, and all sorts of dodges were tried at various times to obviate this trouble. In this particular case there was nothing to be done but to fit a new valve, but, for some reason or other, there was not a single spare valve in the stores, and instant dismissal was the penalty if anyone were caught robbing ' other vehicles that were in dock for repair. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to make a new valve, and this is the way I did it. I obtained a I-inch steel bolt about four inches in length, and also a good solid piece of wrought iron, through which I drilled a finch hole. I then heated up the head of the bolt, and, putting the bolt in the hole of the iron block, I hammered the head down until it was about a quarter of an inch thick. This, of course, made the head considerably larger in diameter, large enough in fact for the head of the valve. I then had this forged piece turned up exactly like the old valve, except the end of the stem, and this I had left a little longer and had a thread put on it, so that I could use two nuts and a washer in place of the usual de-Dion cotter. It occurs to me that this, although a makeshift job, was a very simple and cheap way of getting out of the diffiourty. Of course the valve soon hammered itself to bits and the seating was none too good, but it lasted until I could get a proper valve made."
Second-hand Wagons.
151 II The writer of the article "Two months' experience with a second-hand wagon," which we published in the Drivers' and Mechanics' columns of recent issues of this journal, asks us to insert a reply to several of his critics : I notice that B.D.V.I (Chelmsford), in a letter to you which you published in your issue of the nth March, is rather sceptical about my being able to drive a geardriven lorry while a tooth was out of the crown wheel. He makes a mistake in assuming that I got along quite comfortably, because this was far from being the case. He goes on to say that I should be' worth paying to watch.' I do not think I should go too far in saying that I should be able to give him a few points and to charge him pretty stiffly for them.
" Your correspondent Elephant ' (Walworth) wants to know if the purchaser got some sort of a certificate of fitness when he bought the wagon which I described. The answer • to that question is in the negative. The purchaser did not give the garage manager the chance. Ile was anxious to get the vehicle on the road, in order that it might earn something straight away. I am in considerable doubt if the garage would have given a certificate of fitness, even if they had been asked to do so. The cause of all these mishaps was undoubtedly the reckless overloadingindulged in, and this circumstance should point the whole moral of the tale."
The Choice of a Steamer.—A Leeds Driver in South Wales.
[5121 Although we suspended the correspondence on the above subject some weeks ago, we now accede to the request of " W.H.W." (Leeds) that we should publish a further letter in which he is able to give his own personal experience of the type of country of which other correspondents wrote at the time.—" In your issue for the 28th of January last, your correspondent H.B.' (Cardiff) summarised the whole of the varied opinions which you had published under the title The Choice of a Steamer.' He also took occasion to repeat his preference for the Leyland machine, and to state that it could take its load anywhere in South Wales, even when snow was on the ground and when other wagons had to be laid up. He suggested that \V.1-LW.' should try South Wales just after the snow had gone. I am now writing to tell you that I have had a spell of work in that district at the back end of last month. The roads there were covered and in a very bad state; on some of the hills there was as much as 18 inches of snow. I was working in the Rhymney district, and I was told that was a fair sample of the country in South Wales. While in those parts I was driving a Mann wagon. I had no trailer. By a mistake, the first load I had to take weighed no less than seven tons; the material was stone. One of the first hills we came to I estimated to have a gradient of nearly i in lo 'in places. At the first attempt we came to a stop half-way up while running on top gear. As the gauge, however, showed some 30 lb. below working pressure, I decided to back down, and
to have a go at the hill with full pressure. I was pleased to find that the Mann, at the second attempt, tackled the hill in fine style on top gear 'like a cat on hot bricks.' I regarded this as a good performance especially as the road surface was in very poor condition indeed. On the way back, what should we meet but a Leyland, snorting and puffing about, and taking all the road up. It had a load consisting of seven 54-gallon barrels of ale, and four two-dozen cases of bottled beer. I don't think it had anything like eight tons on board. I suggest that the Leyland driver who writes to you ought not to make such a song about his machine, when he has not seen much of them while at work. Nearer home we met a Mann wagon with five tons of empties on its platform, and, in addition, it was pulling a disabled petrol wagon; both belonged to a Cardiff brewery. The driver was doing seven miles an hour when I saw him."
(The reference to the Leyland "snorting and puffing about, and taking all the road up," we would suggest, betokens an amusing prejudice on the part of our correspondent against these reliable t chicles.—End