Hi Folks, here’s an old speed control device I was given by a friend,.. Anyone know how old it might be? I did a patent search to no avail so far. Would it be safe to use? Moriarity? You got one? Electrical over mechanical with a simple 2 wire hook up, power on and grounded through brake light switch,mechanical link to throttle pedal. Kind of hokey..but I suppose it would work...
Hokey, indeed. By the 70s a transistor box and a couple magnets on the driveshaft were the typical solution - actual speed, not throttle opening. I'd guess 60s? Didn't find much online, this MIGHT be them. https://dot.report/dot.php?dot=213643 Nothing using the Part No.
To me this one looks more like something you'd put on your 2 ton dump truck so you could use the PTO or hydraulic pump at half throttle while it's parked.
Not according to the description and function wording. This does not look like any work vehicle interior either.
Yeah, the PTO stuff would be a simple hand throttle, connected to the carb. This has an electrical disengage from the brake switch. That cable routing isn't optimum, either. The strange part is the side knob for speed. Rheostat? Spring?
patent number 3.2 million is early 60s, the instructions look like early 1960s vintage car. It looks pretty hokey, I would not try it. No feedback to tell it how fast you're going, it just holds the gas pedal in one position that is determined by the knob position, then releases it when you hit the brake.
Sigh!! I guess another wall hangar to add to my collection of obscure and obsolete old junk. Thanks for the input guys!
RodSTRace , that knob on the side serves to function as adjustment in the spring tension relationship between the engines throttle spring and the internal spring in the unit. To me it sounds like you need to provide a very close balance between the two to avoid one over powering the other. I suppose this device might prove effective on long expenses of fairly flat terrain, kind of like the cruise from Winnipeg to Saskatchewan. Doesn’t seem to offer any ability for moderation of speed to compensate for terrain etc. Like most of you have suggested, kind of hokey and best left hanging on the wall.
My brother-in-law had one of those on his 70 Impala. He said it worked fine. I think he ordered it from JC Whitney.
you made me look in my 1972 JC W catalog. There it is! It probably works ok where there aren't any hills?
The 1976 catalog shows that they discontinued the cheap one, and now offered a much more expensive one. Still not the best design, it uses RPM for closed loop speed control. Too bad lock up torque converters weren't around for another year or 3!
Squirrel, you keep more obscure printed material around than I do. I ditched my old JC Whitney catalogs fifteen or more years ago. I went to their old showroom on the south side of Chicago probably close to fifty years ago. It was a crowded , colorful experience, reminiscent of what things may have been like in the forties or before. By contrast, their new warehouse and (since closed) outlet in LaSalle was, in the 1990s, a totally different experience, albiet they still carried similar Chinese , Brazilian, and Argentinian “junk”. I sort of wish I had kept a couple of their earlier 1960s or 70s catalogs.
Sounds like we all got bit at an early age. My dad had some old catalogs when I was a kid similar to JC Whitney. Warshaski (I’m sure that spelling is off) You guys probably remember them too.
Yes the same company, Corner building, one with a sign on one side of the building and the other name on the other side. Each company had a different address with the street they faced.
Same company ,Warshoski was the wholesale arm, JC Whitney was the retail arm. I was there many times as a kid..Went with older racers from the neighborhood.
Don’t mean to derail the original discussion but after reading a little bit of history about Warshawski, I’m curious as to how the JC Whitney name entered into the mix. Pretty interesting story about the founder Israel Warshawski.
Warshawsky with a "y" (the one with an "i" is famous anti-Zionist). When I was a kid, the Warshawsky catalogs had better prices than the J.C. Whitney books. As I remember, we'd order from Warshawsky, but kept getting the Whitney books. We had to look around to find somebody with a Warshawsky catalog.
I had a friend that had a mid 70s Honda car. That Honda had a cruise control like the first one posted as a factory option. It too mainly held the gas pedal position. The car would slow down 3-4 mph going up a hill, but I suppose it was better then nothing on those long drives. Early off shore motor bikes also had a "speed control" that would lock the throttle position. I believe all of the early speed controls had to have a brake release that would disable the throttle lock with a brake application, before the device could be used in the USA.
The Jalopy Journal
