Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/399

 Popular Science Monthly

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��A Cold or Wet Weather Suggestion for Motorcyclists

A SIMPLE yet convenient hood or cover for a motorcycle can easily be made from a piece of heavy brown canvas (brown for looks only) or a piece of rubber cloth about 36 by 48.

The canvas should be cut into the shape shown in the picture, then hemmed to prevent raveling. The hood may be securely tied to the handle-bars with pieces of rawhide; but care should be taken to place them far enough forward to allow free movement of the grips. In the same man- ner as above rawhide strips are run through to tie the hood firmly under the head light. Likewise, in the rear, pieces of rawhide or soft iron wire are fas- tened to the mud guard braces to hold the hood in place.

The hood is now fin- ished, and the illustration shows how it looks on the machine.

Automobile and Tractor, Too

TO design a farm-tractor is not dif- ficult, as is evidenced by the thou- sands of such machines in use in the western states. Nor is it difficult to de- sign a pleasure vehicle. But to combine a touring car and a farm-tractor suggests problems that do not appear easy of solution. Yet the designer of the curi-

��ous-looking vehicle shown herewith has experienced no particular difficulty in successfully combining these two types of widely differing vehicles.

The basis of the vehicle, as may be seen by the picture, is an ordinary five- passenger touring car, complete even to

����The rear wheels are jacked up and the tractor-wheels

are attached. Thus an automobile is changed into a

tractor when it is not wanted for touring, and the

machine is used at least twelve hours a day

��The motorcyclist is usually exposed to wind, rain and

sleet. An ingenious cyclist has devised this covering

to protect himself

��its top, its windshield, and its spare tire. It is converted into a farm-tractor by the simple expedient of jacking up the rear wheels and attaching the great tractor- wheels. These wheels are driven by spur-gearing attached at the ends of the driving axles of the touring car.

To adapt the tractor to dift'erent kinds of work it has gearing which permits two speeds, the high gear giving four miles an hour and the low gear two miles an hour. In addition to its usefulness as a tractor, the vehicle can also be used for power purposes about the farm, there being a power shaft, not shown in t h e illustration. At the rear is an extra radiator to prevent overheating when plowing at slow speed. In action, the tractor will drag three sixteen-inch plows t h rough soft or wet ground, and will accom- phsh the work of four to eight horses.

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