I have just dug out my old gauge and it is still extremely accurate. It must be 50 years old at least.
Q. Is there a version that goes higher than 50psi?
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 25 Oct 16 at 12:53
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Appears you've prevented dirt getting into the gauge, so well done.
I still have one of the half moon style Michelin tyre gauges from the 1980s, which is also very accurate. It was given to me by the area rep for the tyre company at the time.
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I inherited mine from my father.. who owned it just after WW2.. Chromed steel and works perfectly...
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Draper do a nice dial version with a length of rubber hose. Reads up to 70psi
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I think my digital one reads up to 99 psi.
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PSI.?
Haven't we moved on to Bar?
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>> PSI.? Haven't we moved on to Bar?>>
My Michelin tyre gauge includes Bar pressures.
But you shouldn't use the Bar if out driving....:-)
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I guess in this forum it's forever 1963 with Bobby Vee, on the wireless, beer 2/6d a pint and the metric system unheard of . :-)
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>> I guess in this forum it's forever 1963 with Bobby Vee, on the wireless, beer
>> 2/6d a pint and the metric system unheard of . :-)
>>
Long before my time...
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>>1963 with Bobby Vee, on the wireless, beer 2/6d a pint
I remember the price of Brew XI going up to 2/6d a pint around '67/'68. I thought it was scandalous.
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A psi is a smaller division that 0.1bar, so better for setting the pressures when using a digital gauge at least.
As for linear measure... how much more useful 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64 was than mm.
Decimals are overrated. A slip of the decimal point and you've ordered 7 foot diameter cake tin.
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I know of an occasion when one digit wrong in a store number resulted in a transformer on a low loader instead of one you could hold in the palm of your hand. No one queried why a submarine wanted a transformer the size of a small house.
Military Land Rovers used to come with a chrome pencil tyre pressure gauge in their tool kits. Few seemed to keep them long.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Tue 25 Oct 16 at 10:50
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Only if you had tried to order a 0.7 ft cake tin which seems unlikely. A six inch tin seems a more likely choice. :-)
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Eggsackly. You wouldn't order a 0.7 foot cake tin. But I keep coming across people who confuse mm and cm.
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Local trading standards said of the gauges they test, the pencil type was the most accurate.
As for weights and measures, all threads bar two on the vintage car are imperial. So I have both imperial and metric micrometers as working out an undersized screw is a pita if you have its size in the wrong units.
I got no help with metric system at all. Imperial units at primary school, and expected to know metric the moment I walked in the door of secondary school.
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>> I got no help with metric system at all. Imperial units at primary school, and
>> expected to know metric the moment I walked in the door of secondary school.
>>
I feel your pain. Sometimes I'm thankful for Harleys still being built in Imperial units; well, American actually.
Incidentally, a good friend of mine who's a retired airframe fitter tells me that one of the first things aircraft companies have to do with new apprentices is to lock them into a classroom till they can work in Imperial units.
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Incidentally, a good friend of mine who's a retired airframe fitter tells me that one of the first things aircraft companies have to do with new apprentices is to lock them into a classroom till they can work in Imperial units.
As long as they work on 'mercan stuff. I wonder how much longer they'll hold out. Mind you working an either isn't rocket science.
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>> rocket science.
Rocket science is no longer rocket science.
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Americans use USCS units - Unitd States Customary System which is similar but not identical to the Imperial System.
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>> PSI.?
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>> Haven't we moved on to Bar?
depends on how much pressure you're dealing with. For small pressure like in car tyres psi is good, for larger pressures bar is better. Kpa is also good, however not many have heard of it or use it.
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>> depends on how much pressure you're dealing with.
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It's the same with any scale - the most instantly comprehensible is surely the one that has whole numbers with a scale of roughly 0 to 100 covering ordinary needs.
So Fahrenheit is good for air temperature, but centigrade if you are dealing with heating up water, cooking, melting things.
For estimating small things, furniture sizes, etc, inches are good, but for pacing out vegetable plots, estimating gravel coverage, general outdoor jobs, yards or metres are much the same.
For drills and screws I concede mm are best, even though I grew up on 64ths.
But for small gaps like spark plugs or bearing clearances I like to think in thou.
A warning with the old pencil-type gauges - don't use one for anything but air.
I tried one once on the tyre valve type test point on a fuel injection rail - it worked once, but then the petrol destroyed the rubber seal or whatever is in the gauge.
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Everything on the Classic is BSF. Some stuff is getting hard to get locally, but some of it's no great loss. Chinese imports, I guess. Bought some 5/16 nuts to do the big end caps but they wouldn't torque up....the threads failing before 35 psi. No trouble to fit the 60 odd year old Jowett ones instead. I have a stock of 1/2 " BSF locknuts for the propshaft couplings. They make a huge difference in smooth running after the castle nuts/split pins. There are 12 on the car and I can get them locally.
Checked the compressions today..thank god for a dual gauge. Wouldn't know what 9.5 BAR was without looking it up on-line. Got a nice set of 8 Whitworth combination spanners from Amazon today. Some of my older ones are getting a bit stretched now.
Rarely use my AF tools now.......only needed for the Velocette.
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> It's the same with any scale - the most instantly comprehensible is surely the one
>> that has whole numbers with a scale of roughly 0 to 100 covering ordinary needs.
Try telling the Americans that, they have no sense of scale. They quite often use lbs for every weight, so they'd describe something as being 44,000lbs rather than 22 tons. Every time I deal work them i have to do a bit of quick maths to know how large they are talking about. Never heard them describe something as being 44,000 inches away though.
Talking of spanner sizes, we still use BA sizes on (mainly) electronic/electrical components and are still being produced using BA sizes.
Disagree on temp though, been younger than many on here, i only use C for air temperature, F doesn't mean a great deal to me.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Fri 28 Oct 16 at 04:58
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As my current car indicates if any tyre is underinflated (and it works so far) I no longer regularly check tyre pressure. This is one gizmo I do like.
Regarding usage of unit, it is all about familiarity. Personally I use km instead of mile. My sat nav is set up as "km" :-)
Average motorway speed in UK is 60 MPH or 100 km/h. So when distances expressed in km it is very easy to figure out how long it will take there to reach. This works fairly accurately.
However, when measuring body temperature, I like Fahrenheit better as it gives whole numbers e.g. 99, 101, 102 etc. rather than 37.x, 38.x in a Celcius thermomemter.
For tyre pressure either PSI or kPa works fine (e.g. 33 PSI = 227 kPa).
PS: NASA uses metric system since 1990s.
Last edited by: movilogo on Fri 28 Oct 16 at 10:07
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Cliff>>For estimating small things, furniture sizes, etc, inches are good,
Really? Feet I think are best.
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>> Cliff>>For estimating small things, furniture sizes, etc, inches are good,
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>> Really? Feet I think are best.
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You have a gap in the alcove of 37". You spot a nice bookcase, a quick measure shows 36", it will fit.
A shelf is 8" deep. A quick glance at the stack of books and you estimate the largest can be only 9", mostly 7-8. Therefore OK.
It must be an age thing, but I am totally unable to estimate in cm or mm.
Show me a short stick and I can estimate whether it is 7" or nearer 8, or a doorway 32" or only 30. But I have no mental picture of what 812mm looks like, or whether it might be 762.
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Tyre pressures are easily checked with eyes and end of right foot.
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Only if you're thinking of buying the car...
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You're in a room and want a rough idea of how big it is. Metres (or yards) are too big, and inches are just silly.
You want to know how far away the shops are to walk, then yards.
Such versatility!
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I wear a pedometer - easy to measure anything..
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Smartphone does it for me...
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Pencil type pressure guage - Stuartli
