Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1916-02-26
Little Care viii Prevent
Most Auto Accidents
ByLB. Weyman.

/ By L B. Weyman.
! Service Manager j. W. Leavitt Il Co.,
| Pacific Coast Distributors of Over
/ land AutOmObiles.)
Half the ears brought to the repair
shop are brought there unnecessarily;
that is, little care from time to time
would have avoided trouble.
1t takes only little time, given sys-
tematically, to keep car in good run
ming condition, and the only need of a
repair shop under such conditions, is
when parts commence to show wear
from long operation.
To secure satisfactory work from an
automobile engine, attention must be
given to at least four particular points.
The carburetor must be properly adjust
ed, the combustion chamber free from
carbon, the spark plugs must be in good
condition and oil should be reasonably
| fresh and clean. Now, all of these
points can be attended to by the owner
or user, provided he has the disposition
to do so-technical skill is not at all
necessary, especially with a machine
constructed as simply as the 1916 Over
/ land
The first and most important point, of
course, is the adjustment Of the carbu-
rotor, which should be so adjusted that
the mixture will not be too rich or too
lean. The proper mixture is one that
is just as lean as possible as a thin
mixture is faster and more powerful
than a rich mixture. All that is neces-
sary is to thin out the mixture by in
creasing the air or cutting down on the
gasoline supply until you arrive at a
condition where with a cold engine
there would be a sneezing or coughing
! in the carburetor which symptoms
will pass away as soon as the engine is
warm. This is a very easy adjustment
| for any one to make.
The next important point is to keep
the carbon out Of the combustion cham
ber, and this is also very easily at
tended to by any one by scraping the
carbon loose with carbon scrapers,
which can be secured from any supply
store, and blowing the loose carbon out
Of the valve domes, or the valve caps,
with a foot pump. bellows or compressed
air The only point to be careful about
is to see that the bottom valves are
/ shut, so that none of the loose carbon
will get under one of the valve seats.
To insure the piston being in firing
position, proceed as follows: Remove
! the valve or domes from No. l cylinder.
/ open the pet cocks in the other cylind-
/ ers, crank the engine over by hand and
watch the inlet valve until it rises and
then seats.
The next time the piston comes to the
top it will be in firing position and
both valves are shut with the piston
anywhere near the top. With the pis-
ton at the top, or within one-fourth a.
an inch of the top of the stroke, 60 in
with your set of three carbon scrapers
and scrape the carbon loose and blow
it out as above directed. Screw in the
valve domes and pass on to the next
cylinder, working on one cylinder at a
time
To see that spark plugs are right
there must be no cracked porcelain.
The spark plug must be reasonably
clean, and the important point is that
the spark plug points must be 1872 of al
inch apart. Spark plugs should be oc
caslOnally inspected as to the spark
gap, because this distance is sometime,
increased by the slow burning away Of
the spark plug wires from the actor
of the electric spark.
The oil in the engine crank cas-,
should be drained off every 1000 mile.
and the crank case washed out witt
kerosene and fresh oil supplied. Aftel
draining off the oil, close the drain plug
and put one gallon of kerosene in thu
crank case, start the engine and rul
it for minute, and then drain off tn,
kerosene and fill the engine with fresl
OIL As stated, this should be done every
1000 miles, because after the oil ha
been splashed around in the engine 70
that distance there is very little oil t.
it and it is more like dirty water thai
oil.
By attention to above four points an,
automobile user should get long-con
tinued, satisfactory service from hi
engine.