The Washington herald., 1917-01-21
|CHANGE TO Low GEAR
when Climbing Hills
Machine Suffers by Constant Ascen-
sions on High, Says Expert.

Add to the list of grievous errors of
motoring the practice followed by many
drivers OF climbing all hills ION the high
gear" This is one mistake of which
pilots are guilty, simply because they
seem to think there is some special merit
in the avoidance OF gear changing. On
the contrary, 1t Is a foolish idea and in
furious to cars.
While all modern cars ascend almost all
grades with ease on high, still there is
a limit TO the pulling power of the most
powerful machines and road conditions
are Inevitably encountered which make a
change to the lower gear advisable as
well as imperative.
One veteran wheelsman, who has tour
ed a great deal, in discussing this fea-
ture of motoring, said:
Every smart driver puts his car into
a lower gear before its motor. with the
throttle open, is slowed down by the
heavy load, to a point at which 1t oper-
ates. Otherwise he will injure its bear
ings and stress its parts undully.
"Four-cylinder motors indicate when
this point Is reached by running jerkily.
with each Individual explosion apparent
to the operator, while motors with six
or more cylinders give much less evil
dence of overlooking, but still require the
relief of a change to lower gear when
their speeds become sufficiently reduced
When slowed down under full throt-
tie to their lowest operative speeds, all
motors waste fuel inordinately. Incl
dentally. they run much more economic
ally when permitted to speed up to rea-
sonable point by being thrown into low
er gear.
Where the maintenance of car speed
is an object the change from high to
intermediate gear should be made when
the speedometer has dropped to fifteen
miles per hour with full gas being sup
piled to the motor. for on the lower gear
nearly double this speed can then be OBJ
tanned. No exact rule as to when to
change gears can be formulated to ap-
ply to oil cars or conditions.
Many drivers let the speed fall to
eight or ten miles an hour before chang
ing, and at this very low speed every
explosion of a four-cyllnder motor racks
the bearings detrimentally. With motors
of more cylinders the point Of changing
to a lower gear may safely be lower than
the above, but time and fuel are both
wasted under such conditions.
Time was when the irregular action or
failure to run on the part of a motor
could be attributed in nine cases out of
ten to faulty ignition. Improvement in
ignition apparatus has. however. made
such vast strides that this situation Is
changed, and bad carburetion is now to
blame for a much larger proportion than
formerly of the improper running of en-
gines.
It matters little how badly a motor
may miss until II Is thoroughly warmed
up, or until II is known that the insula-
ton of the spark plug ends Is perfectly
clean Here the missing should not be
attributed to faulty ignition, but to lack
Of yaporization of the gasoline, to un-
even distribution OF the mixture to the
cylinders or to some similar cause.
Should missing occur in a thoroughly
warm motor. with clean plugs and a
well-regulated mixture, the fault is prob
ably really one of ignition. Among the
chief causes OF skipping may be men
toned imperfect contact OF the points in
the breaker box of a magnetic or to the
interrupter Of a battery system result
ing in failure properly to open and close
the circuit for each ignition.
In most cases this is due to the burn
ing OF the metal points, so that they do
not make perfect connection. They
should be smoothed of with a file or
carborundum stone. and the parts so ad-
justed that the points separate as much
as the instructions recommend: about
1-S2d inch usually. II the interrupter
action Is sluggish, on account of its be-
ing dirty. 1t may cause skipping.
Oil or dust in the distributor (the part
from which the cables lead to the
plugs) often causes missing by per-
mitting the sparks to jump within It. in
stead OF at the plugs. Keep the distrib-
utter clean and free from oil. Loose con-
nections at the battery, distributor and
switch, worn-ofr insulation, rundown
batteries and cracked spark plug porce-
lains also cause spark failures.