Came across this on FB marketplace this morning. Anyone have an idea what it is? https://www.facebook.com/share/1HP1NCKgN5/?mibextid=wwXIfr
It's a hub odometer. Just like it says. It's weighted to stay upright all the time, even though the mounting point moves as the wheel turns. Each time it turns, it adds some to the counter. Notice the tire size is on there, it has to have the right calibration for what tire diameter it's used with.
I read one of those every morning and every evening for five or six years when I was a young budding truck driver.
One of the sets of bottom dumps my dad had bought, had one on each trailer. I also recall them on rental trucks. I ***ume so no one could disconnect the odometer? This was back in the 70’s.
We also sold locks that went around the speedometer cable nuts on both the 5/8-18 speedo end and the 7/8-18 transmission end of the cable.
Yep, still in use. I delivered a few when I was still hauling parts for Napa. County garage, couple of 'big truck' shops, etc.
We ran them on all of our trucks, and trailers. With all the changes that our old trucks saw, whether it be different rear gear ratios or different overdrive percentage transmissions, the hubodometer was always accurate, providing you had the right one for your tire size. This was back in the early-mid 80’s.
I remember satellite disks on big outfit trucks way back, some of those guys now get watched every second I suppose.
My high school pal just retired, 50 plus years in a big rig, drove for Wallym@rt the last twenty years, said the industry no longer values its drivers, said the quality of driving certifications (and drivers) has gone in the toilet, what was the last straw was the 24/7 monitoring every move they make, done.
Military had them into the mid 90's. Their Freightliner tractors, M915 had them to record speed and mileage. Some of us had a key and would remove the paper disc then replace it at the end of the trip. Drove the Motor Sgt, and Officer nuts when they didn't record. Sent them to the mechanics for them to fix them and they could find nothing wrong with them.
In the early '70's one of the duties the MP company I was ***igned to was motor patrol of a one mile square area of high security bunkers. Maximum speed was 15mph except for an alert. Needless to say a bunch of early 20's mostly draftees got bored driving around in circles at 15 mph pretty quickly. As a result, the speed limit was just a suggestion with the resulting adverse affect on the patrol trucks. The Army's result was tachographs in every vehicle. We found out almost immediately that a key to a '57 Chevy opened the unit and all kinds of weird things happened to the internals. They tachographs were a complete failure and didn't last long.
You must not be old enough. While working for a contractor driving Cat 777 end dumps at a coal mine we hauled coal from the deposit to the tipple to be loaded on rail cars. Speed limit was 15 MPH enforced by Federal Mine Safety Inspectors. They would sit by a window in the office and time us with a stopwatch. An infraction would get you a Federal Speeding Ticket payable at a Federal Court House and ******ed off of the mine property. Rainy days were fun on the gob pile as we would circle track race and drift those big Cats while waiting to get loaded. Good thing we never got caught but boy was it fun.
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