Gasoline automobiles

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1. In its broadest sense, the term automobile applies to any self-propelled vehicle, including even steam road rollers, the traction engines used in agricultural work, and locomotives. Custom, however, has narrowed the application of this term until it is now chiefly applied to the self-propelled vehicles used for the transportation, without payment therefore, of passengers for pleasure or for business purposes. When the same automobile is diverted from its original purpose to the carrying of passengers for a money consideration, it is then spoken of as a livery automobile or a livery car, implying that it is for hire. The terms motor car, or car for short, and motor vehicle are used Synonymously with the term automobile.

Motor vehicles devoted entirely to the carrying of freight are called motor trucks, auto trucks, delivery cars, delivery wagons, or commercial vehicles, the latter term being sufficiently broad to embrace them all as a class distinct from pleasure vehicles. Although automobiles are sometimes hired for touring purposes, motor vehicles for the transportation of passengers for hire in cities are of two general classes, namely, motor busses and taxicabs. The latter are usually designed to carry four passengers and considerable baggage as well. They are used extensively in large cities, where they are very popular for making short business and pleasure trips. Motor busses are usually operated on certain main thoroughfares where there are no street-car lines. They carry a large number of passengers, some inside and some on top of the vehicle, and make regular trips at stated intervals between specified points, stopping to take on or to let off passengers at street crossings whenever signaled to do so. What are known as “sight-seeing” motor vehicles are automobiles especially designed for the transportation of a large number of passengers on sightseeing trips, the places of interest along the selected routes being pointed out and described by the man in charge of the vehicle.

At present, most automobiles are driven by internal-combustion engines using gasoline as fuel, the power developed by the engine being applied to the driving road wheels by means of suitably arranged power-transmitting mechanism.



GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE AUTOMOBILE

2. There are two principal parts to an automobile, namely, the chassis (pronounced shah-see) and the body. As originally employed by the French, from whom it has been borrowed, the term chassis was used to designate only the frame of the automobile, but as now used it applies to the assembly of the running gear, consisting of wheels, axles, springs, and frame, and the power plant, which includes the engine and transmission. In other words, the chassis includes everything but the body and its accessories. Before considering in detail the construction of the various parts of the chassis, attention will be given to the assembled parts of the automobile as a whole, the names, location, arrangement, purpose, and relations of the principal parts being noted. In conjunction with this, it should be noted that while automobiles produced by different manufacturers greatly resemble one another in their general features, there is naturally a great difference in the design of the details and the location and arrangement of many parts. For this reason, some of the details of the description of an automobile given here apply to only the particular motor car that is illustrated, the general features of this automobile, however, being common to all of the same type.

The various component parts of an automobile are here treated in a general way, and their construction, functions, operation, and management are explained in detail in the proper places.