Evening star., 1926-03-07
STRANGE NOISES in AUTO
OFTEN FALSE ALARMS
Hundreds of Little Sounds, Traced to
Source, Prove to Be Perfectly
Harmless and Inconsequential.

as loose packing around the pump.
Told me that the next time the noise
started l should jump out and tighten
up the packing nut. I tried this but
to no avail. They then suggested
that the noise might be due to some
friction caused by expansion of the
shaft, and decided that if l would run
along and "let her screech" for a
while the pump would wear little
wherever it happened to be scraping
thus automatically ending the trou-
BILE. | tried this, too, but the result
was nearly disastrous.
The drain cock of the radiator
opened shortly after the noise began.
lost nearly all the water in the cool
ing system before | discovered what
had happened. l was five miles from
home. and the temperature was
around Is. 1t was a logical time, of
course, for all those with me to in
sist that l had waited too long, that
by not taking the hint which the car
had given me on so many occasions
there was nothing to do but say it
with flowers and dig into my pockets
for the price of a new car.
Radiator Drain Cock.
But | still refused to be alarmed.
Why should the engine screech and
the drain cock open at the same time?
The manager of the service station
said ii was a coincidence, so | pro
ceeded to take him for a ride to prove
that il would happen again. And it
did. IT happened so regularly, in fact,
that he said there was no reason for
it. Such thing had never happened
before in all his experience. I adj
n1itted it was new to me. but that was
! ty,k
going all out of my way to find the
cause of the trouble. I vowed that I
would find out what was wrong sim
ply by looking at the symptoms from
a different angle every time | had a
chance.
Thus it was that when cold weather
rolled around and radiator covers
were in order, | found that the
screeching began one day at a much
lower speed. 1t all happened just
about as the motometer was running
heavenward to warn me that the core
of the radiator was getting hot under
the collar. When I stopped the car
steam was coming out of the radiator
overflow pipe. This furnished me with
q new clue.
Steam. Wasn't that the whole thing
in a nutshell? My mind drifted to
thoughts of steam locomotives and
then to steam whistles. Was not this
screeching something on the order
of a whistle? Wouldn't congestion of
steam around the water pump cause
screeching noise? And wouldn't it
tend to blow open the radiator drain
cock that was directly under the
water pump?
Trouble Is Found.
1t all seemed possible. And to prove
that it was possible / opened the front
of the radiator cover and removed the
license plate which | had always car
ried across the front of the radiator.
VOLTA, The trouble disappeared. 1t
was simply q case where the cooling
system, in running trif1e hot, would
permit of congestion of steam around
the water pump. Obviously the design
of the water pump is faulty or per-
haps there is an accumulation of scale
in the pump. Either one would fur
nish a reason for steam congestion.
l have remedied the trouble satisfac-
torily enough by taking special pains
to keep the cooling system extra clean
and the radiator we'll ventilated.
1t doesn't make any difference what
car a man drives, or how we'll he
drives it, he will be sure to catch
sounds now and again which appear to
be warnings of trouble ahead, but
which may be simply results of incon-
sequential things that have happened.
Only the other day | found a mo-
torist worrying himself sick trying to
find something wrong with his rear
axle He had heard strange thud
when entering the garage the night
before, and he knew he had smashed
something. He had been trained TO
regard a cars murmurings as danger
warnings, so he proceeded to OVerdo
the idea.
What really happened was that he
tipped a stone with rear tire. 1t
bounced against the brake drum-a
false alarm and nothing more