Metric dimensions please

Most vehicles use metric dimensions.
It is a lot easier working on vehicles if you use the metric system. I recommend training yourself to use it, that will help you and others around the world to understand what you are saying. Why do I care about you? Things made in china are often made with imperial sizes to sell to the lucrative USA market. There are lots of problems caused by that, the rest of the world has to waste material cutting things down to metric sizes. A lot of manufacturers in Europe can not be bothered making both sizes so you miss out on some of the worlds best materials. If USA wont's to be great again then the products you make to sell to the rest of the world should be metric. You Government is controlled by big business so it is not likely to change because it might cost a few dollars so the people have to change the system by stealth.I know its a big ask but if you convert yourself and enjoy the benefits of a dual system that would be a good start.Would you go back to Pennies Shillings and Pounds? Eric.

As a society, we've tried.. and failed. I wish it were otherwise.

On 23 December 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, which finally gave official federal sanction for the U.S. to convert to using the metric system. However, the 10-year deadline (for conversion), which was in the original bill that was ready for the U.S. Congress to vote on, was somehow dropped from the final version of the bill. So no deadline was set for making the U.S. transition to metric system usage.

Click to expand...

In 1991, President George H. W. Bush signed an Executive Order which notified government agencies that they must have their [1975 Metric Act] metric conversion plans completed and approved by the end of that year. Because the 1988 amendments to the Metric Act allowed some loopholes in government agency metric conversion, a few of the agencies achieved conversion to metric in some areas of their operations. However, other agencies used the loophole to do very little, if any, converting.

Click to expand...

http://www.us-metric.org/

We just have to use two systems for everything, and convert all the time.

Why do i suspect that EricE still has to buy wheels and tires still sized in inches?

--dick
p.s. at least we changed the inch to make it precisely 2.54 cm a while back...
(UK (1930), US (1933)... but it didn't become in widespread use until...)

wikipedia said:

In 1946, the Commonwealth Science Congress recommended a yard of exactly 0.9144 metres for adoption throughout the British Commonwealth. This was adopted by Canada in 1951,[25][26] the United States on 1 July 1959,[27][28][29] Australia in 1961,[30] effective 1 January 1964,[31] and the United Kingdom in 1963,[32] effective on 1 January 1964.[33] The new standards gave an inch of exactly 25.4 mm, 1.7 millionths of an inch longer than the old imperial inch and 2 millionths of an inch shorter than the old US inch.[34]

Click to expand...

I remember the 1959 change... i have a collection of obsoleted wooden yardsticks.

autostaretx said:

p.s. at least we changed the inch to make it precisely 2.54 cm a while back...

Click to expand...

Only dressmakers use cm as a measurement.......

I've never really understood the obsession with the metric system. It's just as arbitrary as the imperial system. What makes three barleycorns (an inch) inferior to some minute fraction of an obscure planet's circumfrence (a meter)? Why is a platinum alloy cylinder stored in a basement near Paris (The kilogram) better than a smaller platinum cylinder stored somewhere in Great Britain (the pound)? Why is the freezing and boiling points of water a better measure than ... well ... ummmm ... I think you've got me on that one.

I'll grant that the metric units scale up and down a bit easier. Although the use of the scalings in practice are rather arbitrary. Cenitmeters - common, cenitgrams - not so much. Deca- and deci- anything? Nope. But the base units are pretty arbitrary in both systems.

Tooth Fairy said:

Only dressmakers use cm as a measurement.......

Click to expand...

In the US the rulers are in inches and centimeters...



Are you seriously trying to convince me that your rulers will have 10, 20, 30 ... at the 1,2,3 cm positions?
(photo requested)

--dick (hmmm... should i change my sig to 118"/3000mm wheelbase? (one of those is wrong)
((then i could have a 2005 2500 3000 Sprinter!))
dressmakers? confess: is a woman's (Shiela's) profile described in inches or metric?
Somehow 914 - 711 - 914 just doesn't seem to cut it... not even as 91.4 - 71.1 - 91.4

Next you will be trying to convince us that the 3 tier Imperial arithmetic monetary calculation system is easier and superior to the decimal currency system!


As for Tyres.....ooops.........Tires!!

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-03/985878609.Sh.r.html

When it comes to lathes and machining, generally speaking the olde English unit of measure is more precise for close tolerances.

We have somewhat kept ourselves in the dark ages. At least we never embraced the Whitworth system.

vic

Aqua Puttana said:

When it comes to lathes and machining, generally speaking the olde English unit of measure is more precise for close tolerances.

We have somewhat kept ourselves in the dark ages. At least we never embraced the Whitworth system.

vic

Click to expand...

Not correct SIR!
It was lauded as a standardization of threads and our Mr Whitworth received a raucous welcome here in the USA upon his invitation by fellow American engineers.

What is true that a bit of old American innovation saw how reducing the size of the bolt head and its corresponding nut size by counting of the dimension across the fault gave you A/F .
Thus head reduction in any case reduced weight and cost of materials to make bolting fasteners.

The singular difference between UNC American course thread and its corresponding Whitworth is as follows:-
The Unified thread angle is 60° and has flattened crests (Whitworth crests are rounded). From 1/4 in up to 1 1/2 in, thread pitch is the same in both systems except that the thread pitch for the 1/2 in bolt is 12 threads per inch (tpi) in BSW versus 13 tpi in the UNC.

As for BSF and UNF
Yes a departure between the two.
In any case our Mr Whitworth (NOT wentworth as some might have you believe) came to a standardization in engineering in the middle of the 19th century where there was none. His thread and the subsequent AMERICAN ADAPTION all took place on the same same diameter bar stock (.e 1/4. 5/16/ 3/'8ths etc) he initially laid down in his engineering paper.

This is basically what Eric is arguing about now, a standardization in manufacturing using the metric system & what used to be called the SI system.
Dennis

Hayes Speciality Fasteners

Here's a pic of those Hayes Fasteners that's large enough to actually see.
http://i.imgur.com/XpD1cQ1.jpg

Gentlemen
As originally suggested I recommend trying the metric system on all your work for a while, at first it may be difficult but once you get it sorted you will love it. Eric.

Gentlemen,
Although metric has overwhelming advantages, the accident of my birthplace and my appreciation of centuries of English literature forces/allows/privileges me to span both worlds in my thinking, work and play.

Luckily, that paragon of implementation, Harbor Freight, has provided this newest addition to my Sprinter's tool box ... the one-size-fits-all palm wrench (with 1/4" through-hole for applying a leveraging handle (not supplied with tool)):




... all for $3.99

--dick (this story is true.. i bought it last week)
p.s. notice how 1/4" is uniquely incompatible with any metric size and occupies that special niche of living in both worlds
p.p.s. which implies that all the planet's ratchet tool square shafts are Imperially sized, too??
(except 3/4" - 19mm)
p.p.p.s. i recall (from the 1960's) that my first metric tool set had a 14mm socket... which was never used... VWs and Porsches did not use that size, and it didn't fit any Imperial nut/bolt usefully either. The 16mm stayed relatively ungreasy, too.

Eric Experience said:

Gentlemen
As originally suggested I recommend trying the metric system on all your work for a while, at first it may be difficult but once you get it sorted you will love it. Eric.

Click to expand...

The problem is that it's not really an individual decision. Both systems are widely in use in the USA, however metric only dominates niche areas (e.g. science, engineering and medicine) while customary units persist in aviation, recipes, packaging, weather forecasts, and just about everywhere else.

Your suggestion is a bit like telling someone who is bilingual in English and Spanish to try speaking only Spanish for a while. That's all well and good but when you're surrounded by people speaking only English it becomes impossible to function.

To me, just about the daftest thing ever is the American Wire Guage.
What must they have been smoking to come up with a system where a larger number represents a thinner wire?
Cross sectional area in mm squared is far more intuitive for calculating permissible loads.

Tekno Tone said:

To me, just about the daftest thing ever is the American Wire Guage.
What must they have been smoking to come up with a system where a larger number represents a thinner wire?
Cross sectional area in mm squared is far more intuitive for calculating permissible loads.

Click to expand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_wire_gauge

"Increasing gauge numbers denote decreasing wire diameters, which is similar to many other non-metric gauging systems such as British Standard Wire Gauge (SWG), but unlike IEC 60228, the metric wire-size standard used in most parts of the world.) This gauge system originated in the number of drawing operations used to produce a given gauge of wire. Very fine wire (for example, 30 gauge) required more passes through the drawing dies than 0 gauge wire did. Manufacturers of wire formerly had proprietary wire gauge systems; the development of standardized wire gauges rationalized selection of wire for a particular purpose."

Well, we don't want to interrupt trade with those two other economic powerhouses that use SAE/Imperial measurements: Liberia and Myanmar. Along with the USA, that makes 3 countries in the entire world that don't use metric as the official measurement system.

With today's CNC CAD/CAM systems, going to metric is mostly just a software issue, not a replacement of an entire house-sized machine.

Sprintofreedom.
You don't get it, If you are talking to the rest of the world you need metric, you analogy assumes you are talking to yourself. Eric.

When I was building my bed in my Sprinter camper van conversion, I spent hours online and on the phone trying to find a metal stockist who had or could get 50x50mm 'L' section aluminium.
I was forced to give up in the end and use 2"X2". My only other option was to import from Germany.

Eric Experience said:

Sprintofreedom.
You don't get it, If you are talking to the rest of the world you need metric, you analogy assumes you are talking to yourself. Eric.

Click to expand...

No, I don't get it. What did you mean by "trying the metric system on all your work"?



edit: I think it's easy to overlook that partially as a side effect of the size (~4000 km on the diagonal), population (~323 million people), economy (25% of world GDP), and comparative geographic isolation (sandwiched between the two largest oceans) of the US... there are many people here who will live their entire life without ever travelling abroad or perhaps even speaking with someone who uses the metric system. So yes, in a sense we do wind up talking to ourselves quite a bit.