Vintage work crew photos

[Toolmaker51]

I learned 18374526 ..18473625 ....... 18527364 .............. 1867532..4?................
So I started over, with the lawnmower, graduated to Harley, got my AA with 3 cyl Lister Petter, without a VW 4 or Fiat 5 available; made serious MBA jump with a slant 6 Dodge......... Wouldn't be doing aircraft 7 or 9 cylinder radials or Ferrari's, yet always gnawing at me this divulgence of our murky past would surface eventually.

Actually, I caught the 18436572 bug in our drive way, failure meant missed date. Classroom and laboratory, the engine compartment of new to me '57 283. Conducted intense gain of function research centered on distributor replacement. The jab; after walking 4 miles for a long enough flat-blade screwdriver to clock the oil pump shaft.
As years went by, found that pattern is not exactly rare, it's numbering sequence of the block.
I used to part off tops of used distributor caps for buddies, appreciating view of the rotor while setting valve lash. Still have one left, for 235 straight 6.
Seemed most of us were GM fans, but just helped a Ford'er Sunday, 1700 miles away. While he's thrashing a Y block, by text and camera phone pics. We thought out loud same instant, "Who'd of thought such a conglomeration of situations might one day coincide?"

The CA auto culture is visible here (Mid West) too, at roughly same population ratio. Not 'tuners', or showroom ready-mades; I mean car and bike builders. Salina, KS, said to be highest concentration. Somewhere in Nebraska there's a legitimate circuit on country roads, cordoned off for the event.
Why not, if it works F1 in Italian cities and Long Beach CA Gran Prix...
Found it! I'd build a mid-engine Factory5 around all aluminum Buick first... https://sorcrace.com/
There's another on rural roads, straightaways and mostly 90° turns, meaning FLAT 90°'s with a drainage ditch, narrow gravel shoulders, no berms or curbs. Reckon Shelby roadster patterns could do that; you know 0-100-0 in a quarter mile.

[jimfols]

18436572
15426378

The SBC fires the same as my FE Ford. Just the cylinders are numbered differently.

[Jon]

Line shaft driven factory and workers. Brazil, 1880.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...y_fullsize.jpg

[neilbourjaily]

Just about the right height when one of those flat belts comes off, to take a man's shoulder off. The first orange packing house I worked, had a flat belt driven belt-and-roll sizer. We had belts everywhere and the equipment to stitch them. Even in modern tech, ca 1975, it was a bear to keep them adjusted.

[Toolmaker51]

Unsure what is in lower left, other than big gears. Driving what, don't know. But definitely a line of vertical boring mills, into the distance.

[Frank S]

Unsure what is in lower left, other than big gears. Driving what, don't know. But definitely a line of vertical boring mills, into the distance.

If you look close at the pair of big gears facing each other you will see they have T slots on their face. and what looks like turned flange rings laying around them and mounted on 1 of them. Maybe set up to turn out mating flanges and 1 guy can watch both operations going on at the same time.

[Toolmaker51]

If you look close at the pair of big gears facing each other you will see they have T slots on their face. and what looks like turned flange rings laying around them and mounted on 1 of them. Maybe set up to turn out mating flanges and 1 guy can watch both operations going on at the same time.

Oh of course! It's a rail shop.
Not gears, they are faceplates, a locomotive wheel visible toward viewer; possibly turning mounted wheels.
To busy critiquing bad lighting, forgot good parts of photograph.
Still cone-drive, running a jack shaft, to get realistic RPM. The final drive is teeth on face plate. Begs the question, how big a vertical shaper cut those teeth? This could be still half a generation before large mills.

[Frank S]

Oh of course! It's a rail shop.
Not gears, they are faceplates, a locomotive wheel visible toward viewer; possibly turning mounted wheels.
To busy critiquing bad lighting, forgot good parts of photograph.
Still cone-drive, running a jack shaft, to get realistic RPM. The final drive is teeth on face plate. Begs the question, how big a vertical shaper cut those teeth? This could be still half a generation before large mills.

Yes and the large diameter of the faceplates were to accommodate the drive wheels of the big steam locomotives

[Jon]

Strength testing at Alcoa Aluminum Research Laboratory. 1955-1965.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...b_fullsize.jpg

[Toolmaker51]

Tensile or compressive? Crankshaft to the right not much of a clue. But that's a heck of a Tinius-Olsen.