“A few minutes ago,” he said, “the engine had so much power I couldn’t stop it when I wanted to; now I can’t make it pull at all.”
“Open your throttle,” the mechanic said.
“The throttle is open,” was the response.
“Oh, I see,” said the workman, and he disappeared into the garage. In a few minutes he reappeared with a small bolt and proceeded to connect the throttle linkage so that the lever and accelerator pedal would open the throttle when moved.
What had happened was that through neglect the bolt had worked loose and dropped out so that the lever did not move the throttle arm, and advancing the lever had no effect.
This bolt probably is one of those to be found imbedded in the pavement somewhere about the city. An examination of the pavement of any of the automobile thoroughfares will reveal nearly all the fifty-seven varieties of auto accessory parts in the asphalt. A great many of the bits of metal found there will be broken skid-chain links, but the writer counted twenty-six different species of other lost parts in crossing Fifty-seventh Street at Eighth Avenue, New York City.
While counting them a driver came along and was unable to stop his car properly—the brake did not work and he had to use the emergency brake after nearly running over a pedestrian. He got out and found that a pin was gone in the brake linkage. A spring cotter had worked out or sheared off and the pin had rattled loose and dropped out.
Many of the stray parts are of a similar nature; nuts, bolts, washers, screws, cotter pins and the like which have worked loose because of neglect. Their absence will doubtless account for a good many of the rattles and squeaks which their former owner is now complaining of, and to replace which he will pay the garage man several times their value.
The average instruction book given with a car will advise the owner to go over the car every so often and tighten up the bolts and nuts as a precautionary measure, but usually no attention is paid to this until the car stops or develops some unusual sound. Then a mechanic is called in and it takes him a couple of hours to find the cause of the trouble, while the owner stands around cursing the maker of the car.
Probably a good many of these parts along the road are due to careless mechanics who drop small parts in the dust pan and will not take the trouble to fish them out, or leave them on the running board and after a time they jar off to the roadway; but it shows there is a lot of carelessness among drivers when they even lose number plates and hub caps.