Stan Hicks came into the Model Garage
shop looking as if he had topped off his hunch with a glassful of vinegar.
"That man," he announced, is here again!"
Gus Wilson looked up from the valve he
was grinding. "What man?" he demanded.
"Silas Barnstable," Stan said. "Old
Mister Pinchpenny himself. He hasn't been around here for six months - not
since he squawked that we were robbing him because we billed him three-fifty
for a four-buck job!"
Gus grinned. For some inexplicable
reason he has a tolerant liking for the old retired farmer who has - and
richly deserves - the reputation of being the tightest and most cantankerous
man in town. "There's one thing in Sila's favor - he's always good for a
laugh," he said. "But what's he up to? Why doesn't he come in?"
Stan took a look out of the window.
"He's doing something to his car," he reported. "Got the hood up, and is
listening to the engine... Here he comes now."
Silas strutted in. As usual his
manner was that of a bantam rooster challenging the world, but under it, Gus
felt, he wasn't altogether at ease.
"Mornin', Gus!" he cackled. "By
jiminy, I ain't seen you in a dog's age! Got a trouble-shootin; job for you
- provided you be a leetle reasonable about what you charge for it.
Old friendship's old friendship, I allus say, and I'm willing to give you
another chance."
"Which means," Gus said with pretended
coldness, "that you've tight-wadded yourself into a mess you want me to get
you out of. Well, that's all right with me, but you'll get charged the same
as anybody else - no less and no more. That being understood, what's the
matter with your car?"
"Derned if I know what's the matter
with it," Silas grumbled. "It don't run the way it ought to, that's all I
know. But it can't be anything serious - nothing that ought to cost much to
fix."
"There's one way to find out. Drive
it in," Silas drove his car into the shop and got out, leaving its engine
idling - which it did with considerable missing. "Now jest listen to that,"
he complained. She starts harder'n cold molasses and then does a lot of
coughin' and sputterin'".
"Maybe it's the cut-rate gas you get
down at that joint you do business with," Stan suggested.
Silas glared at him. Then he turned
back to Gus. "I thought maybe you would have made some improvements around
here since the last time I was in," he said. "Such as firin' that nitwit
grease monkey, for instance.... There's nothing the matter with this gas I've
got in it today - I bought it at that big service station across from the Post
Office, and they charged me plenty for it."
"Well," Gus decided, "if there isn't
something screwy with your ignition, the engine is being starved for fuel,
and since you're using decent gas for a change, the fuel line must be partly
clogged, or the carburetor is out of adjustment. I'll check - "
"No you don't!" Silas howled. "You
ain't going to waste time monkeying around with the ignition or the gas line
or the carburetor. Not if I've got to pay for it! They've all been gone
over by a good mechanic, and he didn't find anything wrong!"
Gus gave him a straight look. "I'll
do this job my way or not at all," he said tartly. "Take your choice!"
Stan's snicker didn't make it any
easier for Silas to give in, but after half a minute of grumbling he told
Gus to go ahead "your own fool way."
Grinning, Gus got into the car and
pressed his foot down on the accelerator pedal. As the engine speeded up
the missing got worse, and it began to cough and backfire in the carburetor.
He pulled the choke part way out. The
missing and backfiring stopped, and when he eased the engine back to idling
speed it continued to run smoothly.
Gus switched off the ignition and got
out. "Your trouble," he told Silas, "is that the mixture is too lean - not
enough gasoline or too much air. You haven't been fooling with your
carburetor, have you?"
"Never even tetched it!" Silas
disclaimed.
"If you haven't changed the carburetor
adjustment," Gus grunted doubtfully, "the needle-valve or the float must
have got out of kilter. Or maybe there's an air leak in the intake
manifold!"
Gus raised the hood. He leaned over
to examine the carburetor, but immediately straightened up with an
expression of deep disgust on his face. "What the dickens is that?"
he demanded, pointing to an oddly-shaped tin can where the air cleaner
should have been.
"Newest thing out!" the owner said
proudly. "Feller that sold it to me called it the Save-Gas Electronic
Supercharger. It's a fuel economizer, that's what it is. And it's cut down
my fuel bills, by heck! Not so much as the feller claimed it would, but
enough so it'll soon have paid for itself. After that it'll be a real money
saver for me.
I got a leetle laid by for a rainy
day, but I ain't one to waste when I can save!"
"I'll say you're not!" Gus agreed with
real feeling. "How long have you had this do-funny on your car?"
"Bout a month," Silas told him.
"And how long has your engine been
missing and coughing and starting hard?"
"Well," Silas admitted slowly, "bout
the same length of time, I guess."
"For a man with your head for figures,
you add things up awful slow," Gus said, tapping the fuel economizer not too
gently with a wrench. "That's the cause of your trouble, and I'll prove it
to you. Got the air cleaner they took off when they installed this fancy
piece of junk?"
"Yep - it's in the back of the car."
Gus disconnected the Save-Gas
Electronic Supercharger, and tossed it contemptuously on his workbench.
Then he reinstalled the air cleaner. "Now listen," he said, and got into
the car.
The engine took off at a mere touch of
the starter switch. When he stepped on the accelerator it speeded up
smoothly, without missing or backfiring, and with the choke in. When he
eased the pressure on the pedal it idled quietly and steadily.
Gus got out. "Convinced?" he asked.
The old fellow was red in the face and
his faded blue eyes were blazing. "I've been cheated!" he howled. "If they
won't give me my money back for that danged contraption I'll stand 'em a
suit - I will, by heck!"
"You've been stuck all right," Gus
agreed unsympathetically, "but you can't do anything about it. You've got
to admit that the Save-Gas Electronic Supercharger - which isn't either
electronic or a supercharger - did just what the salesman claimed it would
do.
It reduced the amount of gas you
used." He picked up the funnel-like contrivance, looked it over carefully,
and handed it to Silas.
"You see how it saves gas, don't you?
The opening of the can is toward the font of the car, so extra air flows
into the carburetor. That leans the fuel mixture, and saves gas - just what
the salesman said - so you can't claim that he misrepresented it. He just
forgot to mention what the saving would cost in terms of performance."
"I'll get even," Silas snarled.
"Those dirty cheats not only stuck me with this thing - they charged me for
a trouble-shootin' job!
If they don't make good I'll have the
law on 'em!"
After Silas had gone on his way, still
breathing fire and vowing vengeance, Stan turned to Gus. "Say, boss," he
asked, "are all the fuel economizers as useless as that one old Pinchpenny
got stuck with?"
"I wouldn't want to say that," Gus
hedged, "because maybe I haven't seen them all. But I will say that I've
never seen one that would do anything a simple carburetor adjustment
wouldn't do as well or better. And the engineers at the Bureau of Standards
down in Washington, who have tested a lot of 'em, say the same thing.
"Mind you, I'm only speaking of
economizers, not performance improvers of the hot-rod, short-manifold type.
These can sometimes make a sluggish engine wake up, while gas savers do just
the opposite.
"This economizer is one of the better
ones," he went on after he had fired up his pipe. "At least it makes good
on its promise to reduce gas consumption. But unless the buyer's carburetor
has been adjusted to give too rich a mixture, it does it by cutting engine
performance.
"Most gas-saving gadgets work on the
principle of adding more air to the carburetor mixture. If the carburetor
has been set to give an unnecessarily rich mixture, an economizer will cut
fuel consumption without spoiling engine performance by leaning down the
too-rich mixture to normal. But carburetor adjustment will do that just as
well, and cheaper. If the carburetor gives a normal mixture, an economizer
will still reduce gas consumption, but the extra air makes the mixture so
lean the engine'll buck and cough. If you don't mind poor pick-up and a
little sluggishness, you can save just as much gas by installing a 'lean'
jet on the carburetor."
"And go limping off at every light?
Not me!" declared Stan.
"The average car owner, who's more
interested in good performance than in squeezing the last possible foot out
of each gallon of gas," said Gus, you should stick to normal carburetor
adjustment. That'll feed a rich mixture when needed and save maximum power,
and a leaner mixture when the engine doesn't work so hard.
"Most fuel economizers work on the
air-adding principle, but a few have been developed which try to do the
fuel-saving job in a different way. They don't spoil performance, but they
don't save gas either. One that I had a chance to look at used an electric
spark. It was supposed to make ozone to boost power, but the amount of
ozone it produced was so small it couldn't be measured - which was lucky
because ozone in quantity is a swell knock inducer!"
Stan nodded thoughtfully, "I guess it
all boils down to this - you get what you pay for."
Gus stared at his assistant with mock
surprise, "Once in a long while," he said, "you amaze me by being sensible!"
END
