Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/528

 Turning a Car in Its Own Length

It is a mere matter of lifting it and swinging it around on its rear wheels

��THE parking problem would be par- tially solved by the adoption of the device illustrated, which enables a car to turn around in its own length.

It consists of a small wheel carried cross- wise of the car between the front of the motor and the

���radiator. This wheel is mounted on two pistons which may be forced down in vertical cylinders by means of a fluid under pres- sure from the en- gine cylinders until it contacts with the ground. A further down- ward movement of the pistons raises the front wheels of the car clear off the ground.

The operation of lift- ing and turning a car is controlled from a lever mounted in a small case in the driver's cab. One double-ended pipe is screwed into the combus- tion chambers of two of the engine cylinders and then led to a double piston valve in the control case. This piping serves to carry a small amount of the compressed cylinder gases to the piston- valve, by the manipulation of which the oil in the two vertical cylinders carrying the small lifting wheel on their piston rods is put under pressure. Check valves are placed in the line outside of each cylinder so that the oil cannot back up into the engine on the suction strokes.

The control cylinder in which the double piston valve reciprocates is normally open to the atmosphere so that the gas under pressure from the cylinders may escape when the device is not in operation. A backward movement of the control lever ghuts off the opening to the atmosphere and

��permits the gas to force the oil in the system through a pipe leading to the tops of the two vertical cylinders carrying the lifting wheel. A further movement of the lever to the right or left opens two valves into two additional pipes leading to the bottoms of the cylinders.

��The small wheel carried crosswise of the car between the front of the motor and the radiator is mounted on two pistons by which the front wheels are raised

���With the rear wheels as an axis, the car can be turned completely around in a space equal to its own length

��When the pistons have moved down to their extreme bottom positions and the front wheels of the car are lifted clear, the ends of the pipes leading to the bottom of left or right cylinder, accord- ing to the way the lever is moved, come op- posite ports in the hollow piston rods and permit the oil to flow down into the pump on the wheel and turn it one way or the other through gearing. The fluid under pressure escapes down the hollow piston rods to the gear pump integral with the small wheel, so that the small wheel is revolved to right or left. In this way the car is turned com- pletely round, end for end, in its own length. The car is lowered to the ground in the reverse manner.

���The lifting and turning operation is controlled from a single lever mount- ed in a small case in the driver's cab

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