Mark:
The lubrication system you are referring to was once common in large factory
machinery and on steam locomotives. A bit of trivia: it was invented by Elijah
McCoy. Soon after it began appearing in wide use, many unscrupulous folks
infringed on Mr. McCoy's patent and developed similar systems, but none of them
ever worked as well as McCoy's lubrication system, which saved countless lives
by allowing machines to be lubricated without crawling inside of them. When
buyers of such equipment would inquire as to its lubrication system, they all
wanted "the real McCoy," and a cliche was born!
How's that for useless knowledge?
Chris Eck
Triumphless
59 Bugeye Sprite
99 M Roadster
In a message dated 7/8/2003 2:52:11 PM Eastern Standard Time, Mark Hooper
<mhooper@pix-cinema.com> writes:
>We all spend time grousing about our british cars' habit of leaking
>everywhere. Moaning about leaking oil seals and what to do about them. I
>think we should accept the fact that they were designed to leak this way and
>for a reason.
>
>I was chatting with a guy at the office who spent some time working on
>lorries in Britain. He recalled the first time he looked at the machinery
>and having seen a largish oil tank with lots of pipes heading out of it. He
>asked what the thing was for and was told that the piping all led to
>"lubricators" i.e. drip points located over the universal joints and
>bearings. As the truck rolled along there was a steady drip drip of oil
>pouring on the active suspension components. I guess the amount of rain in
>the UK washes out the bearings.
>
>I think that when it came to building a consumer car, the lubricator system
>was just too expensive so they just made everything leak to compensate for
>it's normal activity.
>
>I vaguely seem to remember hearing of such a setup from another source, but
>would love to hear some confirmation from our UK brethren. For all I know
>it's standard in North America too, however I haven't seen too many puddles
>around commercial trucks here.
>
>Mark Hooper
/// triumphs@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|