Long Forgotten Motoring Accessories

[Alan Drover]

I found this in the garage this morning. Who remembers them? It still works so I'm going to fit it in the Land Rover.

[Craig T]

Is it one of these, image is a bit blurry...
Never seen one myself.

Craig.

[diffwhine]

It was common on commercials. Tapley make the meter that MOT testers have to use when they can't put a permanent 4x4 vehicle on a single axle rolling brake tester.

[Alan Drover]

Is it one of these, image is a bit blurry...
Never seen one myself.

Craig.

Yes, sorry about the blurry image.

[Craig T]

I remember the old meter that my MOT chap still uses to check the brakes on my P38. His is a round type thing with a really heavy, solid steel base and it involves getting up to speed and standing on the brakes. If the meter needle goes over a certain point, brake test successful.

My little Toyota he can test on the rollers off course.

Craig.

[diffwhine]

Correct! That's the Tapley Meter, Its a bit of a generic tern now as other people make them, but that's what they are known as. My one is a 1960s one and still works and calibrates perfectly.

[TimV]

I have a 'lights on' alarm by Sparkrite (who remembers them), fitted and working.

[Gareth]

I've got a very old tyre pressure indicator. You press it onto the valve and the graduated inner section shoots out to indicate the pressure.

[Craig T]

I've got a very old tyre pressure indicator. You press it onto the valve and the graduated inner section shoots out to indicate the pressure.

I have one of those but my dad got hold of it many years back and it's for aircraft tyres. It reads in psi still but it's about 10 inches long and reads up to some ridiculous pressure like 250psi. It's very inaccurate at car tyre pressures!

Craig.

[Wittsend]

I have a Tapley meter 
Sadly without the wooden box.
The base is really, really heavy.

Makes a good desk-top ornament in my man cave.




You can always use a common or garden house brick as a brake test meter ...



(originally published in a Car Mechanics magazine from the '60s after the MoT test was invented.)

[NoBeardNoTopKnot]

I'd not give house-room for car-accessory shop shonk, yet I've a real soft-spot for period car-accessory shop shonk. I'm no sure where the distinction sits, but the more ridiculous it looks, provided it's period, the more I want it.

eg: I love 1960s & 70s fuel-saver shonk, and the sales bumpf that goes with. I've got a few. The more obscure and clearly useless the better.

I love the idea that according to the fluff, each piece of tat gives 5% more economy or 15% power. Buy the lot and add all the improvements together... you've a 700bhp fire-breathing monster that does 120mpg with special carburettors. Own such things and women beg for sex.

Our very own Fairey Overdrive clearly won't meet the claims and is fair example, I love all that. It must be me, I've put mention of some of the stuff I have up here before - few seem to 'get' it.

My favourites are my Smiths Oil-check, my stick-on rear heated-screen and the  "I saw you coming' Redex Robot. Funny in itself, LR owners seem to prefer the irony bypass route. And that's fine too.


I'm looking for a period 'nodding dog" precisely because...

I don't care if the Tapley works, or has no useful purpose. In fact, if it does that rather ruins the appeal. Right up my street, if for sale... PM me, I'll take that Tapley doodad in a heartbeat.

[Alan Drover]

2 more items from many decades ago. The first is a Kismet Trolley Compressor made by William Turner of Sheffield. It's a double barrel hand pump used by garages before air compressors. The barrels are one inside the other. I bought it at a local auction sometime in the 1980's for £3. A new airline got it working. The pivot points for the barrel have oil cups and there's a pressure gauge take off point. It's around 75 years old.
The second is a double barrel foot pump made by the same company. I bought this not so long ago from someone who reconditions them. It is possibly older than the compressor and could be even pre WW2.
Pumping 7.50's is hard work for both but on car tyres they work very well as my neighbour discovered when pumping a tyre on his Golf.
(I use a twin cylinder T Max compressor that delivers 150 litres of air a minute on the Land Rover tyres).

[Peter Holden]

I have a pair of electric screen demister that stick to the screen with suckers.  They are not that old but came from a supplier of classic car accessories.  They are needed in a S2 with a Smiths shin burner unless you have heated screens

Peter

[autorover1]

Parking light, clipped on the side glass . May dad had one on his 1954 Morris Minor  You cannot view this attachment.

[martinthefirst]

I restored a "Dunlop Giant" foot pump to keep in the LR

https://photos.app.goo.gl/7NAdM6Sace72ChHE9