100 years of automotive tools

Motor,  Nov 2003  by Eckstein, Paul M

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Analyze This...& That & That & That!

The earliest method of analyzing an automobile's engine was to listen to it. So early engine "doctors" used a stethoscope to isolate abnormal engine sounds. "The Auto Phonendoscope cuts out the noise," proclaimed an ad in the March 1910 issue. The "noise" it cut out was the normal background noise, allowing the mechanic to isolate the abnormal noise. This product, by the way, came packed in a velvet-lined case!

In MOTOR's December 1929 issue, a column titled "Good Equipment" led off with an early multitester called the Motoscope. This device had a neon tube to test the spark plugs and the distributor; a cylinder balance gauge to test the coil, condenser and high-tension wires; and a vacameter to test the carburetor and compression leaks. In the early '50s, Sun Electric developed the Master Motor Tester, "the analog fore-runner of todays modem computerized engine analyzers," we said in a retrospective in the November 1997 issue. In the late-'50s, Du Mont's EnginScope had Superscan, which showed the test pattern of each individual cylinder simultaneously instead of all cylinders in a single line across the screen.

When we became environmentally conscious in the '70s and '80s, a number of companies added an emissions-testing capability to their analyzers, or marketed dedicated emissions testers. Analyzers became so big, in fact-in both what they could do and the footprint they made on the shop floor, in some cases-that they were called diagnostic centers. They generally were able to test everything on a vehicle that needed testing, with such features as automatic self-calibration and color printouts of test results so the customer could see at a glance exactly what was wrong.

Technology developed to the point that new phrases-hand-held, scan tool and PDA-entered the service lexicon. Now, a technician standing over an engine has the power of many sophisticated testers-lab scope, digital multimeter, flight recorder and more-right in the palm of his hand.

In engine diagnostics, it looks like we've come full circle: We went from a simple analyzer a mechanic could hold in his hand to a super-duper analyzer a mechanic could, well, hold in his hand.

A Hundred Miles of Bad Road

Front-wheel alignments have been a staple of repair shops pretty much since automobiles began traversing the mt-riddled roads of the early 20th century. An editorial item in MOTOR's November 1926 issue described a front-wheel aligner that measured the rims at axle height, on either side of the axle, both in front of and behind it. Tightening two sliding eccentric collars indicated and held the measurements, which were then compared. A few years later, MOTOR readers were told of a wheel alignment indicator that used long metal plates mounted on ball bearings, a large double-faced dial that could read toe-in and toe-out and a bell that sounded when excessive misalignment was measured.

Easier, faster and more accurate wheel alignments were made possible in the late-'40s with the so-called "beam-of-light" principle. This offered shops the additional benefit of being able to prove to customers, if you will, in a strikingly visual way, the real need for a wheel alignment. Technology has gotten higher (as it always does), and now we have alignment machines that can measure wheel alignment via infrared light or digital cameras. On some models, information can be relayed from the alignment heads to the alignment machine via radio waves, eliminating the need for pesky connecting cords.