Los Angeles herald., 1910-01-14
COMMERCIAL CARS
SHOW IMPROVEMENT
Objectionable Feature of Inaccessible
Parts Overcome in Late Models
Shown by Reliable Manu-
facturers

To the general public the gasoline
much the same as last year, but there
is vast Improvement in details that
can be discovered easily by close OBJ
servation.
On the details depends to SO great a
degree the success or failure of a car
from q standpoint of reliability and
economy. Up to a year or so ago the
commercial car was not much of sue
cess.
Chief among the faults of the COM
mercial car that has hindered Its
progress has been inaccessibility of
parts. The best engineers have con-
tended that the first thing to be con-
sidered in designing a truck was to so
attach the different vital parts to one
another SO that within a few minutes
any part could be taken away without
disturbing any other part, and that un-
til this was done, without sacrificing
strength or adding weight the design
was not correct. For example, suppose
in the past, bearing in the transmits
sion went wrong from some cause
probably not altogether the fault of the
car. This bearing in itself might be
very inexpensive, but after the car had
been taken all to pieces, the bearing
fixed, and the car put together again,
the repair bill presented to the owner
of the truck, to say nothing of the time
lost, made him skeptical of the econ
omy of motor wagons over horses. II
this bearing could have been gotten at
quickly and fixed it would have been
another story. Another thing which
tended to give the motor truck a
"black eye" was that engine bear
ings, and in fact bearings all over the
car, were too small to Withstand the
hard wear, tremendous strains and
shocks to which they were subjected,
and the result was short life.
When a merchant pays several thou
sand dollars for a piece of machinery
that he expects will reduce the cost Of
transporting his goods he is not in
clined to enthuse much over this piece
of machinery If it has Joined the down
and outs within six months or year.
Had the bearings been generous and
designed for long life the merchant
would have a different story to tell.
In the past engineers made the gears
strong enough-With q reasonable fac
tor of safety-to transmit the power
developed by the engine, but unforeseen
strains came up and knocked into a
cooked hat" the theory that gears
need only be strong enough to transmit
the engines power. Now the tendency
is to reduce the horsepower of the en-
gine and multiply the strength of the
gears. This year, transmission, differ
entail and driving gears are big, husky
and of the right material. The driver
that can put them "out of business"
should be made foreman of railroad
wrecking crew.
Axles, steering apparatus. frames,
springs, radiators, in fact all parts in
the past have been generally deficient,
but the 1910 models of all the reliable
makers that are on exhibition at the
Madison Square garden show are ma
chimes that no merchant need hesi-
tate to invest his money in. They
show that the engineers and operators
have heen getting their heads to-
gether and today have produced
practical motor vehicle that is thor
oughly reliable, long-lived and econofn-
ical