In article ,
Roger Chapman wrote:
On old British machinery Whitworth was the norm. My first socket set
bought in 1964 was both AF and Whitworth and I think Whitworth could
still be found on some cars actually manufactured in the 1960s although
my car at the time was a 1952 Riley 2.5 and memory fades (or at least my
does) as to what was or was not current after such a long time.

Some BMC cars post war continued to use what were essentially pre-war
major components although perhaps somewhat improved over the originals.
Examples were the Riley twin cam units and the MG XP series of engines. By
about the mid '50s all these engines were dropped and the post war
designed A, B and C series units were the norm. And they used unified
threads.

Some of the smaller makers may well have continued to use the pre-war
threads until much later. Rolls Royce certainly did for some things.

Although most of the UK motor industry did adopt the unified threads I'm
not so sure this applied to the US. People there still talk about AC and
AF. Of course these are often interchangeable and may just be convention.
But I did buy at an autojumble a new (cheap) set of AC and AF taps and
dies so I'd guess they're still more in common use than BSF and BSW are
here.

Personally I miss the unified threads. I think them more suitable for car
stuff than 'standard' metric.

--
*How many roads must a man travel down before he admits he is lost?

Dave Plowman London SW
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