Excerpt from Westward Hoboes: Ups and Downs of Frontier Motoring What I knew of the bowels of a car had been gained, not from systematic research, but bitter experience with mutinous parts, in ten years' progress through two, four, six and finally eight-cylinder motors of widely varying temperaments. I had taken no course in mechanics, and had, and still have, a way of confusing the differential with the transmission. But I love to tinker! In the old two-cylinder days, when the carburetor flooded I would weigh it down with a few pebbles and a hairpin, and when the feed became too scanty, I would take the hair pin Out and leave the pebbles in. I had a smattering knowledge of all the deviltry defective batteries, leaky radiators, frozen steering-wheels, cranky generators, wrongly-hung springs, stripped gears and slipping clutches can perpetrate, but those parts which commonly behaved themselves I left severely alone. Toby could not drive. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.