7/16" Drive

[leg17]

Saw a 'This Old House' segment Saturday featuring astronaut Mike Foreman.
He was showing off some of the tools used on the space station.

NASA has standardized 7/16" drive for all their tooling.

Guess Blackhawk was on the right track, just years ahead of the times.

[Bill Houghton]

To be known as the Goldilocks size - not too small, not too large.

[EVILDR235]

Instead of buying off the shelf tools, they pick some odd size that has to be made and costs a lot more. I want to see that $6,000 ratchet. I am surprised they did not go metric. Do British rockets use Whitworth sized tools ? I say old boy, hand me that 1/2 W spanner and would you help me lift the bonnet on the rocket.

EvilDr235 the 8th.

[Northwoods]

Saw a 'This Old House' segment Saturday featuring astronaut Mike Foreman.
He was showing off some of the tools used on the space station.

NASA has standardized 7/16" drive for all their tooling.

Guess Blackhawk was on the right track, just years ahead of the times.

And it took a rocket scientist to make that call!

[Bill Houghton]

Do British rockets use Whitworth sized tools ? I say old boy, hand me that 1/2 W spanner and would you help me lift the bonnet on the rocket.

EvilDr235 the 8th.

Hardly matters; if British rockets used Lucas electrics, they'd stay on the launch pad, leaking oil from somewhere, even if there was no oil in the rocket system.

[leg17]

And it took a rocket scientist to make that call!

(can't find the thumbs up smerf)
anyway, I like it.

[EVILDR235]

You are so right Bill. I forgot about LUCAS, the Prince of Darkness. Pretty much like why they don't build TV sets in England. They have not figured out how to make them leak oil.

EvilDr235

[Papaw]

But all Lucas Electrics can leak smoke!

[EVILDR235]

I like old English motorcycles, but they put the brake pedal and the shifter on the wrong sides of the bikes. I like old English cars also. My first car was a 1955 English Ford Anglia. I paid $6.00 for it and had to make two payments of $3.00 to pay it off. That is how poor we were. When me and my wife got married she got a 1959 Morris Minor 1000. Back in the mid 1970's we got invited to a party at the home of one of the members of the Jefferson Airplanes house in Marin county. We left the party after several hours and we should not have been driving. We went over to S.F. to go up and down some big hills in the Morris. About halfway up this tall hill in second gear I had to downshift to low. No syncros in low and I blew out first and reverse gears. We drove back to Vallejo early in the morning. We drove the car several months till the clutch started slipping and we parked it. We later sold it to some guy in the Air Force who was stationed at Travis Air Force Base in near by Fairfield. He bought it for his English wife who missed hers back in Great Britain.

Sir EvilDr235

[Papaw]

I bought an MGA from a finance company in 1971 for a small amount of money. I had a motorcycle shop and it was my sole transportation. I really liked that car and drove it everywhere. Lots of Gymkhanas and short road trips with only the normal English car problems. I also had a Triumph Daytona motorcycle that had lots of problems!
I sold that car to a local guy and told him that the radiator needed to be replaced soon, but he didn't listen and overheated the engine a few weeks later! He brought it to me for an engine overhaul that we did in the bike shop. It cost him more that he paid for the car when he bought it from me.

[EVILDR235]

Just for fun, I use to start the Morris with the hand crank that was also used to take off the lug nuts. I had a total of five of the Anglias over the years. The one I should have kept I bought from my friend Rubin. It had right hand drive. I worked on one for a lady that taught a art class near my house. it was a English Ford Thames woody wagon. it had the flathead engine with a overhead valve conversion simular to a Crager head. It had the exhaust valves still in the block and the intakes were in the cyl head. It had two carbs mounted on the cyl head with the original intake manifold blocked off with a plate over the carb hole. It had a four speed trans where mine only had a three speed tranny. It still had the original exhaust manifold. It was a lot faster than the original engine.

EvilDr235 & 1/2