K.P.H. indication on 1940 speedometer face.

[htc]

Hello,

I am restoring Ford Truck clusters.
Today I came across a cluster with a speedometer face plate that I have never seen before. It has the 1940 look and it is a Waltham but I have never seen the K.P.H. indication beneath the pointer.
Could this be Kilometer Per Hour?
I did buy the cluster from somebody in Belgium where they do not use Miles and use Kilometers instead but did Ford sell its cars in Europe in 1940 and did they go through the effort of providing kph speedometers for this?
Anybody?





When I have cleaned all parts of the speedometer and reinstalled the hairspring I will be able to test of it is km or miles but maybe somebody already knows or has a non mile 1940 Ford truck or car?

The fact that one sees 1st, 2nd and 3rd gear indications on this 100 .... face plate is another indication that this might be indeed a km face plate.
The gear indication on miles face plates is only on 60 mph speedometers and not on 100 mph.

Quite unique I think ... but then again who cares about all this detail? :-)

Greetings
Hans

[rockfla]

Absolutely
Belgium, Germany, Holland, France. ALL over Europe & England!!

[DavidG]

If Ford sold its products in a country with the metric system of measurement its speedometers were calibrated in kilometers, not miles, not just in Europe as there were metric countries in South America and Asia as well, long before 1940. Ford has been building and selling cars and trucks outside of the U.S. since 1904.

[ford38v8]

Hans, The mechanical works of a speedometer are identical no matter if the dial indicates MPH or KPH. Faceplates of a particular model can be changed one for the other. Some faceplates show both MPH and KPH readings on the same plate.

[DavidG]

Alan,

Unfortunately, that is not exactly correct for Fords of the period. I can't speak to 1940s, but
1932 to 1936 Ford speedometers are calibrated differently for MPH and KPH. While they obviously both start at zero, they both do not end at 90 mph or 90 x 1.609 (for example).

Robert,

Throughout the flathead era, the mile was the unit of measurement for distance in England, unlike on the Continent.

[vincent]

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Changing the face is only half the job as the counting mechanism is still wrong

[ford38v8]

David, are you saying that the same manufacturer created two different mechanisms, or that two different manufacturers were used?

[DavidG]

Alan,

Over the years I have had way more than my fair share of '32-'36 kph and mph speedometers and they are geared slightly different, one to another, by all three U.S. speedometer suppliers (Delco, Stewart-Warner, and Waltham). If you switch face plates, you end up with inaccurate dial readings. Not a lot, but enough to notice that your speedometer reading isn't accurate.

[htc]

Thank you all,

That is a lot of interesting info and it sure helps.
(I am nicely surprized that there are so many reactions to my second post in this forum).

It also means that to restore a non-miles-country car one needs a kph speedometer.

The speed indication of a speedometer depends on the strength of the magnet and the strength of the hairspring that restricts the speed cup rotation.
Changing the dial plate works perfect for speed indication.
The gears do not influence the speed indication.
I guess the cars made for the US and abroad all have the same gear in the transmission (where the speedometer cable gets its info).

With the odometer(s) however, David is very right that other gears or at least one other gear is needed to make the odometer rolls turn faster.

In the following picture one sees the gear that makes the odometer turn (This is a Waltham where the numbers turn downwards).



As the odometer needs to advance faster when distance in kilometers needs to be shown this gear might be different when comparing a miles speedometer with a kilometer one.

I will try to compare the two off them and report back if I can see a difference (probably not easy unless it is a matter of counting teeth).

Thank you for your reactions.

Greetings
Hans

[htc]

Hello

As promised I report back on the gear situation.
It was easier then expected.

In the following picture one sees a miles-odometer-third-gear combination on the left and a kilometer-odometer-third-gear combination on the right.



The number of teeth on miles one is 25. The number of teeth on the kilometer one is 31. This is not enough to get the 1.6 relation so the third gear driving the odometer is also different.

QED

Greetings
Hans

[ford38v8]

Thank you for setting me straight, and I believe that now I understand the reason for different gearing. I hadn't previously thought of the odometer, only considering the speedometer.