Technical airplane gauges dangerous?

I've had that done on me...

 

Hello,

We did not like the big shiny chrome Sun Tach on the dash or drilled into the post or anywhere in the 1958 Impala. We looked high and low for a smaller tach. Every hot rod shop had the big ones and that was not going to work. Besides, who looks at a tach when the excitement of a drag race is looking down the strip and not at the dash.

We learned to shift when the sound was right. Those shift points were making the E.T. times lower each time we got to run. So, without a tach on the dash, was fine for us at Lion’s Dragstrip and the local Cherry Avenue acceleration location.

We went to the Douglas Aircraft Surplus Yard to look for aluminum sheets and parts. The guy there said to try the local Army War Surplus Shop just down the street in Bixby Knolls on the way home. When we arrived, the store owner knew exactly what we were looking for in a small tachometer. He had several black painted tachometers in all stages of appearance. Some of them looked brand new.

He showed us the different models and came out with one small tachometer in its own round back case. It was wired to light up at night and the face was about 2-3 inches. Not the big 5 inch size Chrome Sun Tach. It would work on any 12 v car system. So, it was perfect.

There were two camps coming out of Reath Automotive. One was “watch the tach for shift points and since they are preset, it should be at peak performance.” The other camp was, “LISTEN for the motor revving up to that peak moment and then shift.” It takes practice as part of the whole “get ready to race” list and now that was my brother’s goal.

We both practiced those listening skills for the peak and never once blew anything up during our practice runs. It was a learned thing and made us concentrate on getting faster starts with the lights and or the arm drop.

Jnaki
almost half the size of a chrome Sun Tachometer...
When the Impala was now my car, at the insistence of my friends with their shiny tachometers on their dashboards, the small black tach that fit nicely under the lip of the dash, over to the right side of the speedometer. It covered the 120 mph mark, but at the drags, the 120 needle was pegged at the start and was useless. On the street, no one goes that fast...
Green arrow placement, out of normal driving front road vision. Nicely tucked under the dashboard lip.

Despite the black on a red/orange dash, the small black tachometer did not stand out like a giant chrome Sun unit. When my friends saw the small unit, they were going to get one for themselves and install it IN their old dashboards. It simply hooked up to the stock electricals and looked good, but not obtrusive.

The small tach had a nice built-in light and was a nice looking additional accessory. When I got the C&O Stick Hydro installed, the tach was virtually useless when the power came on in “Drive.” Getting the good quick start was the main thing as I knew the modified motor would hold up to 95% of the other hot rods.

So, anxiety and clear thoughts of winning in a straight line was the only thing necessary. In the time of the 58 Impala ownership, the tach was not used other than as a custom accessory. It was a one-of-a-kind small tach for our cruising show, without holes in/on the dash. YRMV

Thanks to my older and sometimes wiser, brother… My drag racing sense improved, I got better at getting good starts, shifting and keeping a straight line with plenty of traction and no tire slippages. When the C&O Stick Hydro came into play, it was all there, just step on the gas with lightning speed for super fast off the starting line motion. The saying "Keep you eyes on the prize" comes in very handy in that time period of excitement. The tach? What tach?

NOTE:
Our 1962-63 real life version as created by @themoose...

The discovery of a late night theft from a secure parking place on the street was odd. The Impala was wedged between two cars and still got taken. This led to a 12 midnight search all over known spots in Long Beach and Lakewood, ending up to a 3:00 a.m. discovery in a darkened corner of a park we knew in East Long Beach.

The thieves must have known my Impala. It was left in a dark corner of the park, sitting on several sturdy milk crates. The only thing stolen, other than the Buick Skylark Wires was my custom black tachometer removed gently from the dash position. No scratches, no dents or broken windows. It was all neat and tidy.

The mystery was never solved, except that we think we knew who did the theft. No, break in, as a key was used for access. We found the Impala around 2:30 a.m. in a dark deserted park sitting on milk crates. All of the Skylark Wire Wheels were gone and whoever took them, neatly cut the wires off and unscrewed the small black tachometer from the dash. No scratches, no marks and the police did not get any fingerprints anywhere.

But, the dumb clods who stole the wire wheels and small tach forgot to open the trunk, where a pristine 5th Buick Skylark Wire Wheel was sitting in the spare tire wheel well space.

 

Well... when it comes to Japanese stuff, I seem to remember a direct correlation between radiation and Godzilla. So, be careful.

 

I wouldn’t worry about. Funny story. Canadian military was disposing of their old sixties era 6x6s. They had prisoners disassemble the vehicles for a scrap dealer. One day scrap dealer shows up, but with a radiation detector and it alarms. All hell breaks loose. We get called (at the time I was managing all our military’s CBRN detection equipment). We send out our specialist while everything was under “quarantine”. Turns out it was the radium on the gauges. We told them to carry on. Lol!

 

Or run with scissors.

 

I have a customer who refines and smelts scrap aluminum. An aluminum foundry.

One day a few years ago I’m working away on a piece of equipment when I look over and see two bins marked “ RADIOACTIVE “ return to so and so customer !!! Wtf

I ask the lead hand and he tells me the two large pillars on either side of the way scale coming into the yard are Geiger counters and they get a fair bit of radio active materials that they turn around right away , but every once in a while a bin or two “ sneak through “ so they have a hand held Geiger counter and inspect all scrap aluminum before they test it and dump it in one of the foundry’s .

the fines are HUGE and pretty much constitute bankruptcy and shutdown .

so yes , they are careful . They also indicated that “ most” of the time it’s low level radiation and not harmful to humans unless you get the dust blowing around or burn it and inhale it.

yup , thanks man for being diligent ……. Now move these fu$&ing bins away from me !!!!!!

 

No 12 step program is going to cure that!

 

Everything kills you these days. How did we ever survive in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.

 

No one ever accused me of being a genius, that being said I have worked on many aircraft tachometers with radium dials. Which exposed me to a lot more than you having them sealed in your car. I’m knocking on wood right now I hope I’m ok I’m pretty sure you will be.
But then again see my opening nine words.

 

They are not dangerous , but you need to keep an eye on your airspeed

 

What was your association with Reath Automotive? Many years ago I was in a small auto repair shop in Newton Iowa where I bought a Weiand 4X2 Chrysler Hemi intake complete with a quartet of Stromberg 97's. Sitting on a shelf near it was a Butter-Nut coffee can with a faintly readable REATH written on it in red magic marker. It was filled with Champion N-54R reduced gap spark plugs. It sits on my shelf of collectible automotive memorabilia.

That's all I have to the story. Was this a pretty typical thing you might find in the pits at a track where Joe and the gang were racing? I'd like to add any history I can to the story.

One of the plugs:


Reduced gap end. For those that are unfamiliar, this type of plug is used where there is not adequate piston-to-head (ie, high compression) clearance to have a spark plug electrode hanging down into the chamber.


The can with the REATH lettering on it.

 

I would keep an eye on the Altimeter! Could cause an accident! haha

 

I have the tool to gap those plugs!

 

What does it look like? Some kind of tiny hollow grindstone? And I assume you can only open the gap, not close it?

 

SuperT, read a book about the “Radium Girls” .

 

All that work on guages and rats nest cd player wires hanging down!!?? Cmon

 

Coffee and cigarettes may eventually kill me. But in the meantime, they keep me from killing other people. So...

 

Hello,

Reath Automotive was a few miles away from our old high school. We first discovered this speed shop through word of mouth of other teenage hot rod/drag racing guys. When we went there over the years, Joe Reath did not know us from "Adam" but, talked to us as if we were old time racers and builders. That was part of his memory that is well known in all hot rod/drag racing circles, for most everyone that visited the shop for parts.

It was the numerous “word of mouth” conversations (actually listening and asking more questions from our end) that happened every time we stopped at the speed shop on 10th and Cherry Avenue. We learned a lot, bought the recommended parts for our builds and it was like an older/older brother that took us under his wing for information.

Jnaki

One of the things we all did was to keep old spark plugs for each time we fired up for tuning and warming up. (As recommended by the Reath Auto shop.) Then as we drove around, changed the plugs for the actual new competition plugs, once we got to the dragstrip pits area. So, we had a lot of spare spark plugs that only had a few times of start ups and tuning runs.

We started to put them in drawers of our table top parts storage box, but soon ran out of total storage space. So, the easy thing was to use an old T-shirt for protection at the bottom of a can. Then, gently put our minimal use plugs in the cans, near our building/tuning backyard location or at the pits area of the dragstrip. Ours were the old Red Folger's Cans as that is what our dad/mom drank back then.

It was a common thing for most everyone. No custom, individual spark plug racks or shallow drawers to store once used spark plugs. Plus, the storage boxes were not so handy when the tuning spot was outside of the backyard garage location. A coffee can did the job for storage and accessibility.

If one of our friends was in need of spark plugs, they were welcome to come over and get a matched set of barely used plugs for their own situation. Eventually, there were several Folger’s Cans with labels on them. One for Champion Spark Plugs and one for those Pink Lodge Plugs, which were premium plugs. YRMV

In the last days of our Willys 671 C/Gas adventure, we were in talks with a Reath Automotie sponsorship as we had explained our future plans, including the ordered parts waiting for us in our friend’s Los Angeles warehouse. They also liked our 1940 Willys project and times/speeds we were approaching. It is/was reassuring that Joe Reath came up to both of us in the pits and said what a build/results it was for us, meaning a couple of teenagers.
My choice was a silver finish, my brother wanted a yellow version of the finished 1940 Willys project with the trunk a possible place for the Reath logo info.

 

I have more radioactive objects than that in my bedroom. Don't lick the radium and you'll be fine. Cool gauges.

 

Hell yea. I could start a whole new discussion about our current, neurotic, terrified-of-living societies but it would immediately degenerate into politics so I won't...

 

Does it have a California Prop 65 sticker on it? LOL