What does this measure/Test?

[Lostmind]

I picked this up this weekend.United Motors Service was a division of GM.
It looks like a tire gauge , but it's a scale or tension gauge.Cant emagine a wiper arm pulling the max that this would measure,and the hook looks to small for steering effort or belt tension.
Any ideas?

[krusty the clown]

distributor point tension

[rusty]

How many people on the planet still know how to do that? LOL

[Mel Larsen]

No I did not know that or how until I just looked it up on Google and here is what the man said:  the OEM recommended 17-20oz) tells us that the tension is too high and that the new point set will most likely wear prematurely and may cause ignition problems quite early because the wooden rubbing block is pushing too hard on the distributor shaft lobes. The remedy is to realign the points, readjust the springs, or subsitute another set. In any case -- the Spring Tension gauge was an invaluable tool for bench testing distributors of the time.


That is my contribution for the day
Mel