8 Apr
2000
8 Apr
'00
10:31 a.m.
I hope there are one or more folks who read this
who've worked on or at
least been around old time race cars which used Sun Tachometers and have an
answer to the following:
I'm trying to restore a Sun Tachometer Transmitter for a friend who's
furiously trying to finish his 1953-vintage Kurtis Kraft race car
restoration project before the upcoming AACA show season. It is a
magneto-type ignition system and he's found a used Transmitter. Model
number is EB37, MAGneto type and it is hung off a Ford Flathead V8.
There are two batteries mounted inside the unit, obviously because often
race cars with magneto ignition have no need of a battery whether it be 6V
or 12V. They _look_ like NiCd cells, maybe 600-800 mAh capacity, but I'm
not 100% sure. This unit is from back in the late 1950's and has a "1058"
rubber-stamped in orange ink on the back of the case - I suspect Oct, 1958.
They are likely mercury cells, I used to have to find them for the tach(SUN)
in the crown Vicki my brother had. common was the 5.8V/250mah.
Would anybody be able to confirm if these are indeed
NiCd cells? Reason I'm
not sure is I haven't found when NiCd batteries actually came into use and
I believe they are a 60's invention, not 50's which this Sun unit evidently
Nicads are quite old. Though the common form on the 50s-60s was the wet
cells that looked like lead acid. They were also available as hermetic
(well sorta) then and not cheap.
Allison