Motoring
WINTER RISKS
Jr is really 'very odd that in spite of all we are supposed to have learnt about cars in the last quarter of a century the trials and difficulties of winter-time, the risks run by careless owners in very cold weather, the precautions we must take should be at least as onerous as they were at the beginning of practical and: general motoring. Winter,_ at least in this country, is still as anxious a time of year as ever it was.
I am not for the moment thinking of frost dangers. These are perfectly avoidable if you care to take a reasonable amount of trouble or spend a moderate amount of money. Either you make all sure by emptying your cooling system whenever the car is likely to be exposed to risk of frost ; or you buy an anti-freezing compound to add to the water. I don't know if it matters very much which you choose, the pro- prietary brand or commercial glycerine (both have their enthusiastic supporters), as I imagine that all- have the desired effect of preventing damage to your engine and radiator in any temperature above some twenty degrees of frost. • And that must be a very rare figure in any sort of enclosed shelter in this country. I believe some of them " creep " and therefore escape ; some are alleged to injure rubber connexions, radiators, and water-jackets, some to reduce the cooling properties to a serious degree (I don't believe_ that last story), but whatever their drawbacks—if any—they are certainly the lazy man's solution of the problem. -
I cannot remember that we ever used glycetine in the old days, though I can remember very well emptying radiators, as I can remember our happy lack of anxiety. In those bright days we would start up our engines and immediately drive them as hard as possible to get them as warm as possible as soon as possible. Not, of course, for the modern scientific reasons. We knew nothing at all about corrosion due to condensation, and the importance of generating heat as quickly as may be. In those care-free, if not exactly trouble-free days we did not re-bore cylindersI doubt if the word was even known outside factories—and though engines were far less efficient than they are today, the best of them stood up to ill-usage and neglect in a manner that is only equalled now by the most expensive and best-designed. It may be that the same damage was done by ill-considered engine- racing or, alternatively,- by slow warming-up, but if it was,
we knew nothing of it. Compression-loss and rising oil- consumption were as rare as they are common today. It may have been our ignorance, it may have been that oils were better, it may have been that the stuff of which our engines were made was better. I can only remember 'what happened.
Today we have that already whiskered question of whether
it is safer to race a cold engine or to let it tick over. The scientists-7-the Profession, as it were—say-that it is fatal 'to let your engine idle until it is really hot. The old-timers, who would not at all mind being called the Amateurs, mindful of expensive damage done to over-raced cold engines in the remote past, continue to idle gently on cold mornings, accelerating the process of Warming-up only by rugs over radiator and bonnet or, of course, by heaters below the sump or under the bonnet. As one oithem, I am afraid my testimony is not of much value, in that my own car was ten years old last week,- and that I understand the material of which her cylinders are constructed is different from that of the latest types and, in any case, the model is obsolete. So the fact that' though I have never warmed her up by modern methods and that she is still unbored and still averaging over ',coo miles to the gallon of oil counts for nothing in the argument.
This is a point each owner must decide for himself. The
complaint I make is that any such discussion should be necessary at all, that the whole business of the early start from cold should still be as tuisimple- is ever it was since the days of the first magneto and the first modem carburettor. We don't, as a general - rule get an easier start in 1937-38 than we did twenty Years ilgo.- Is much leis- trouble, of course, because we have ahattery do the work for us, but the crankiliaft has to be turned over by outside means at least as often before the engine runs of itself as it did in these unregenerate days of good hefty starting handles,- tickled Seats and all the rest of it.
Thar matter of the first firing is one of the most critical.
When we swung a lusty starting handle it did not matter except to our biceps and wind whether the initial compression to be overcome was high or not, whether she moved stickily or freely. After a turn or two the stickiness disappeared. If, as I did with an engine having a bore and stroke of zoo by 140, you shied at the idea of swinging her on a frosty morning, you did a thing that would appal the most callous today. You took a little paraffin out of the side-lamps the night before and poured it 'through the valve wirers.- This; as you might guess, effectively freed the pistons by the simple 'proceSS of washing away all oil from the cylinders' walls, leaving in its place a slippery but quite unoily subsOtute, Which joined a61.inwoverishee the oil in the sump. The next .morning you approached the: starting handle practically smoking a cigarette. You didn't care.
'Today it is nothing so cheap as- biceps fatigue and wind shortage that we have-to consider, but an exp-eithire battery— a machine that probablx wears oqt quicker Alan any. other. The initial effort of breaking the ,fihii of oil that has solidified on the walls of the cylinders and in the hidings" such that a few minutes' work will suffice to reduce its revolving power to a point where it is useless for starting a cold' engiit'-,.T.his dots it no good at all, and if the process is repeated it will "result in a forced replacement before very long. It-is-another of the katachronisms froni which we suffer, and I would not have laboured the point so long if I had not lately been sent a cure for it. This is -the new Shell oil; an entirely new product. The makers have asked me to try it in my own engine and to report on its qualities. They claim for it protection against corrosion owing to the fact that in--all circumstances of temperature and weather, and after any period of idleness, a -protective film of it ' remains on ihe.surfitces in contact. They say that it prevents " dry-starting."
That is a claim as serious as it is interesting, and so far as
free starting goes I can fully endorse it. Owing to the thoroughly typical winter weather we have had in the past month, I have been able to apply as severe a test as any possible outside a laboratory, and I have found that on a morning after many degrees of frost in an unheated garage, and after eleven days' idleness, the engine turns over as freely either by hand or by starter as if it were at running temperature. It is quite unneces- sary to use the starting handle to break the oil-film. So far as I can judge, in everyday running conditionsptheftngine is as free stone-cold. as it is *anti; I have never had this happen t&me before, and I am apPreciating something reallyrie* in Motbring.
[Note.—Readers' requests for advice from our Motoring Correspondent on the choice of new cars should be accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope. The highest price payable must be given, as well as the type of body required. No advice can be given on the purchase, sale or exchange of used cars.] —
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