Metric ?

Hello,

Just curious:

Do all foreign branded cars mfg. in the U.S. use Metric fasteners ?

Ever a mix of Metric and English on vehicles ?

Thanks,
Bob

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In article >, Bob > wrote:
>Just curious:
>
>Do all foreign branded cars mfg. in the U.S. use Metric fasteners ?

No, unfortunately.

>Ever a mix of Metric and English on vehicles ?

I had an '82 Ford Escort where the water pump was held on by two metric
and two SAE bolts. It was... a car with some design issues to say the least.
--scott

And don't forget that British Leyland vehicles used Whitworth threads, which
was enough like SAE that you could use the same tools, but not enough that
you could use the same fasteners.
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> In article >, Bob > wrote:
>> Just curious:
>>
>> Do all foreign branded cars mfg. in the U.S. use Metric fasteners ?
>
> No, unfortunately.
>
>> Ever a mix of Metric and English on vehicles ?
>
> I had an '82 Ford Escort where the water pump was held on by two metric
> and two SAE bolts. It was... a car with some design issues to say the least.
> --scott
>
> And don't forget that British Leyland vehicles used Whitworth threads, which
> was enough like SAE that you could use the same tools, but not enough that
> you could use the same fasteners.

Yeah, it can be interesting at times. Then you go get "re-manufactured"
parts and those use different fasteners than the originals.
Just went through that on a Jeep. All new brakes and calipers had
different sized bleeders.

--
Steve W.

On 2014-12-19, Bob > wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Just curious:
>
> Do all foreign branded cars mfg. in the U.S. use Metric fasteners ?

Everyone uses metric now.

> Ever a mix of Metric and English on vehicles ?

US automakers switched in the 1970s. I doubt anything is left from the
inch days where an ordinary person would notice. There are however
likely many parts still made per inch standards but unless you take
calipers to them there's no way to know.

Brent wrote:
> On 2014-12-19, Bob > wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> Just curious:
>>
>> Do all foreign branded cars mfg. in the U.S. use Metric fasteners ?
>
> Everyone uses metric now.
>
>> Ever a mix of Metric and English on vehicles ?
>
> US automakers switched in the 1970s. I doubt anything is left from the
> inch days where an ordinary person would notice. There are however
> likely many parts still made per inch standards but unless you take
> calipers to them there's no way to know.
>
>

They didn't switch in the 70's. They started importing vehicles from
other countries that used the metric system. Then as they started
building "world cars" and opening plants in other countries they built
metric vehicles.

Still very common to find inch and metric on vehicles.

--
Steve W.

"Steve W." > wrote in :


>
> They didn't switch in the 70's. They started importing vehicles from
> other countries that used the metric system. Then as they started
> building "world cars" and opening plants in other countries they built
> metric vehicles.



American automakers went metric once they started using computers to design
their cars, and that started in the '70s.

I don't know about now (it's been over a decade since I was involved with
Tier-1 suppliers), but for the longest time Catia (pronounced "ka-TEE-a")
was the program universally used by automakers. Catia was set up to divide
the car into 10cm cubes. All blueprints came divided that way as well. All
dimensioning was done in metric, even if the underlying parameters
(wheelbase, track, etc) were originally specified in inches.

Fasteners are/were metric or Imperial depending on existing product lines,
existing stocks, supplier machinery, and industry practice.


--
Tegger