History bought a Sun Tach... then three rows over bought this!

Motor School with Sun diagnostic equipment 1947

 

Dude, thats pretty crazy, I was guessing mine was late 40s, and from your pic, I was right!

 

Yes, the one on the left is like yours just new.
I didn't see your post when I added the picture ... odd coincidence

 

Here is my modest Sun Dwell-Tach Tester.
Had to replace and calibrate a couple of capacitors, but its 100% accurate and working now.
Runs on 2x 1.5 V Size D batteries.

I also have two Sun Tachs with senders in both my rides from 1947.
Same battery size and also needed the capacitors calibrated and a 50 Ω resistor to convert to 12V.

 

nice pick up chad.

 

What all do they do? Can you still get manuals for them?

 

makes it very easy to set points, tach and dwell, vaccuum guage for setting up the carbs, multi meter and coil checker too!

Mine even has an exhaust sniffer

 

I missed a manual for one yesterday, it ended with one bid... $15.00!

 

My pop's had me on a holy terror snaping up sun stuff we've found. I'll get pictures up as soon as I can. He used to sell the stuff back in the day.

Anyone want to help me get a distributor maching I bought from Baton Rouge to Dayton Oh?

 

I wondered who got it. I saw it sitting there with a sold sign on it. I was PISSED!

 

ill give you 40

 

That's super cool!!

 

I too have the voltage/batt tester and the tach/dwell hanging style meters. I got you all beat on price...free because I liked em.

 

COOL find!!! I'm eventually doing a "diorama" garage at my old house / general store / garage out in the country and am looking for interesting props for the garage too. I have found a "Bear Headlight Tester", some of the older "bullet" trash cans, a big MOOG chassis parts wall chart from the late 50's, a few old grease and oil cans, a rotary desk phone... If you want to send me a message, I might have some extra stuff that we can trade? (I'd rather trade stuff because it usually makes everyone happier than putting a $ price on something.)

 

I bought a Sun tune up machine with all the bells and whistles including the scope from the 50s. I ended shit canning everything that was in the first picture because it need the leads replaced and most of the stuff didn't work. If it was close to being a working unit I might have invested dollars into it but most of the stuff that it did back then can be duplicated with a hand held meter today. I still have the 5' wide roll around base that I use as a bench. The above meters are great for decoration but take up too much wall space unless you have a warehouse.

My buddy had one at his shop and knew how to use it back in the 70s. The scope is very cool to watch. He could stack up all 8 spark plug waves to look for differences. You could even superimpose all 8 on top of each other comparing the length and height of the 8 different spikes. The height and layout of the spikes would tell an educated user a lot about the condition of the ignition system and the various components of the system including the plug wires. He ended up shit canning his too.

Unlike the 50s techs we don't test iffy components any more. Today's customer will want to sue you or demand a refund if something fails months later even if it tested fine when it was checked.

I too had the dream of duplicating a 50s gas station repair bay. Alas I don't have a warehouse.