Evening star., 1922-10-29
THE OWNER.DRIVER'S
COLUMN
Carburetor. and Present-Day Gas.

Carburetors and Present-Day Gas.
The other day the owner Of a 1912
model car telephoned the writer and
asked where he could secure parts for
this old carburetor. Upon being asked
why he did not get new carburetor,
he. of course. said 1t would cost too
much. Thereupon followed a lecture
which resulted in the car owner order
Ing a new carburetor. and for the bene-
flt Of other readers it might be well
! to give the gist Of this lecture here.
mo sir; 1912 carburetors cannot take
care Of 1922 gasoline and make good
job of it. The 1912 carburetor was
volatile that 1t would evaporate of
your finger In zero weather. Present.
day gasoline. however, does not volato-
lize nearly 30 readily. The 1912 car
buretor cannot turn this fuel into gas;
all it can do is break 1t UP into droplets
, This means inefficient carburetion and
, fewer miles per gallon.
To build a good carburetor for pres
ent-day gas IL a very much harder
task than 1t was to build one for 1912
gas. Heat must be applied to break
the drops of fuel up into vapor. Au-
tomobile engineers have employed var
ious methods to supply this heat. The
standard Of these seems to be to pass
the fuel vapor over hot plate or hot
spot as it is on its way to the cylinders.
which is simple enough. But here again
we run into the difficulty Of lack Of
capacity OF the manifolds. The heat
ing of gases expands them and the
old style of manifolds are too small
Then there is the chance drop of
gasoline which manages to miss the
hot spot" and goes on as drop Of
oil. not vapor. into the cylinder.
where the explosion does not make
use of it, Such drops either go out
Of the exhaust pipe as red streaks in
the fame or they go down between
the piston and cylinder wall into the
crankcase. where they do untold dam
Age to the lubricating oil. The en-
these; he has inserted battle plates in
the manifold. No drops can get by
| these without being buffeted and
mixed with air until they are va
porized.
If the carburetor in your car has q
heating jacket around the fuel bowi.
by all means let the heat go through
1t. II 1t uses heated air, see that IL
gets heated air in cold weather. II
the engine sputters and refuses to
take hold these cold mornings. pull
the primer and it will soon pull. 1t
an engine does not cough for more
fuel when first started on cold
morning, 1t is almost certain that it
has an overly rich mixture and it
should by all means be reduced.
Study your carburetor till you know
what each part is for, and you will
be convinced that the present day car
buretor is a marvel Of ingenuity.
When Is . Tire Worth vulcanizfng /.
tn,
motorists We have asked ourselves
this question. The tire may be
fairly good looking specimen. it may
be fairly firm all around it's tread.
but at one place, where it blew out.
We are after every mile in the tire,
lied: we ask the probable cost and
find 1t is perhaps one-third the cost
of new casing. A new casing should
give. say, 5000 miles. The vulcan
lied tire should give one-third of
this mileage or 1t will not pay to have
1t done Mans of us have spent money
on such jobs as retreads or vulcaniZ-
ing large holes in order to make a
tire "hang-out" for a while longer
and have been disappointed The tires
race was run. and the mileage we
got for the extra expense was the
most expensive of all. Then there is
the damage to inner tubes; a blow
out frequently ruins tube. This
must be added to the cost Of the mile
age of the vulcaniZed tire. This does
not begin to account for the loss of
time, and the fact that one can never
rely on such tires for a long trip. IN
the face of this. does it pay to vul-
canize old tires?
A Peculiar Blowout Patch.
Not SO very long ago we were
caught far away from home By
blowout after having put on our
spare u day or two before 1t hap
pened miles from garage, and We
had neither boot or blowout patch
with US. What we did have was {,
large manila paper envelope and a
newspaper so that it filled the en-
velope. We laid this In the casing,
inflated the tire and drove on. Being
very busy, We did not trouble to re-
move the tire for two days. during
which 1t did over hundred miles.
Very soon the chilly mornings will
cause motors to start reluctantly and
the motorist must remember to drain
OF serious breakage. OF all the addi-
weather these two are the most i'm
many vexatious delays and is often
very hard on the starting battery. Yet
there need be no serious starting
proper steps to prepare our engines
for start on cold mornings.
Present-day gasoline does not evap-