In message , T i m
writes
On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 06:43:43 +0000, Graeme
wrote:
In message , T i m
writes
and who
typically made them ... began with a 'Y' was it? (I had the set in my
Moggy Minor van). ;-)

Yaeger?

Hmm, I think it was more Japanese sounding than that (and it may not
have begun with a Y).

I think my Yaeger should have been Jaeger? Then there were Smiths, and
Lucus. Yazaki?

fuel gauge, volts, amps, manifold vacuum, water temp and oil pressure.

Ah, that was another, oil pressure!

I always wanted, but never had, a clock.

The fuel gauge was the standard Anglia unit, butchered to fit inside a
round housing, so all the meters matched. Oh, happy days, but all
fairly pointless :-)

;-)

I guess it was like most things they *could* serve a purpose (like
indicate when yer oil or big end shells needed changing) but as you
say, for most of the time they just looked good.

Indeed - foot down, and watch the manifold pressure. I think it was the
water temp. gauge that used a capillary (spelling?) tube between the
engine and the gauge. The tube was encased within a protective wire
case, and had to be carefully fed around the engine bay, and through the
bulkhead. Accidentally touching it against a battery terminal produced
some interesting sparks.

My favourite (and most expensive if I remember correctly) was the baby
rev-counter.

Yes - I had a matching speedo and rev counter, but how I found a
circular speedo for an Anglia, I cannot remember.

The good thing about meters though (assuming you knew how to read
them) was they did give you advanced warning of a problem. The
Daughters Ka doesn't have a temperature gauge so the first and only
warning you would get of a problem in the cooling system is when the
red light came on by witch time it could be too late?

Absolutely. Modern cars seem to have warning lights for every
eventuality, but, as you say, with gauges you can, um, gauge when
something is going wrong, whereas with a warning light, whatever is
going wrong has already gone.

A hose split on my old Rover 218SD the other day and I did the
remaining 25 miles home using the temperature gauge as a speed limiter
(max speed was about 50 mph, pretty good with no water I thought) ;-)

grin
--
Graeme Eldred