Mystery discs - what are they?

I inherited these discs from the boiler house work bench where my dad worked about seventy years ago. Curious to know what they were used for. The holes seem to be accurately made in quarter of an inch steps from 1 1//5 down to 1/4 and the last one at 1/8 in dia. They were in a small tin labelled "Quikies" - my wife knows what they were, but my understanding of a quikie was somewhat different!

Could they be restrictors.

Steve.

QUICKIES were (are ??) skin cleaning wipes.

Hi, I think Steve is correct, they would be placed between two flanges in a pipeline to control the amount of fluid flowing through a system. It says on the tin that the Quickies are face cleansing pads, so nowt to do with the holy discs.

Regards Nick.

I'm with steviegtr or commonly known as snubbers

An anecdote. Apropro StevieGTR, Nick & Bernard's comments above.

In the period up to the mid-1960's, the GPO as it was then used to always buy Morris vehicles. And always with the smallest engine possible, eg Minor vans were fitted with an 803cc engine. This continued until BMC stopped producing the 803 cc engine which meant that the Minor vans were fitted with the then standard engine - 1098cc. Now a lot of the staff, especially on the engineering side, were young men, and we all know what young men are like especially when it came to vehicles that they did not own.The inevitable result was accidents, and so the GPO decided to fit a restrictor plate between the carburettor and the inlet manifold thus reducing the amount of fuel/air flow. This plate reduced the throat size from I think about 1 1/8" down to 3/4" thus reducing both the acceleration and the maximum speed available. Needless to say, there were complaints, usually along the lines of being passed by doubledecker buses when going up hill, but to no avail. A select few did have the plate removed but only for those technicians that the mechanics trusted.

Mind you, there were some idiots driving for the GPO back then, me included, but for me it was only 3 years and then promotion called.

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

Following the 803cc engine a 948cc OHV engine was used prior to 1098cc.

Robert Butler

Edited By Robert Butler on 19/03/2022 21:34:15

On Carburettor model motorcycles. The restrictors are used to control the power to 33hp for learner legal to ride larger cc bikes. New bikes are now done by ecu .

Steve.

Orifice Plates?

Pressure difference across a given calibrated plate will give an accurate flow measurement.

Hi, yes, Orifice plates, we used to make them a keyhole type shape, much easier to change and get the hole central in the pipework.

Regards Nick.

Credit where it’s due : **LINK**

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

MichaelG.

Well, that Miss Shilling was quite a gal. And her orifice would have been sight for sore eyes among RAF pilots.

Robert Butler,

Yes it was, but, as I remember it, the GPO went straight from 803cc to 1098cc. I've a sneaky recollection that the 803cc might have ended up as a GPO special until BMC decided to stop making them by which time it was 1098cc or nothing.

I also seem to recall that the 803cc Minors also had a low ratio set of gears, certainly 1st & 2nd were very low indeed. But, this is all hazyish memories dating back between 50 & 60 years and was a time when I ended up being promoted, and changing jobs, and changing locations, all within the GPO.

Whatever it was, the restrictor plates were definitely fitted because of the accident rate.

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

I've seen similar rings used In drafting to produce a offset line inside or outside a straight or irregular shape ,it works the same as the offset tool in AutoCAD by putting a pen or scriber inside the ring and rolling it around the shape ,I have used it on jobs and it works well

To drift off topic, yet again,

The 803cc BMC A Series engine (Used in the Morris Minor after the 918 cc Morris side valve, and the A30 ) was replaced in late 1956, by the 945 cc engine to power the Minor 1000 and the A35.

There were features, such as the dashboard layoiut on the Minor 1000 and the gutters on the A35 that distinguished them from their predecessors. Our 1955 Minor was 803 cc but had the 1000 type dash. Sadly it did not have the better gearbox that mated with the larger engine..

The GPO restrictor was just a steel plate inserted between the SU carburrettor and the inlet manifold.

On the earlier and larger Morris Commercial vans a Solex Governor carburettor was used. In this the throttle plate was not directly controlled by the throttle linkage, but by a spring loaded device which sensed induction vacuum and limited speed by preventing it going below a preset value.

Supposedly, it could be partially overridden by using the choke to increase the vacuum, at the expense of fuel consumption and black smoke!

Howard

I suppose a restrictor is a good idea. The boiler did actually supply steam to a Turkish Bath. Wouldn’t want to scald the clients. Still not sure weather the grease monkeys were that bothered though, although they did entertain a very small boy 👦

Edited By Bob Wild on 22/03/2022 20:05:55

Can we not.

This was my thought.