Bloody Yank imperialism

[Ixion]

Once upon a time, long long before most of you were born, when I was very young, the world was a simpler and more noble place.

George V, King Emperor, whom God preserve, sat upon the throne of the British Empire, and we , his loyal subjects , stood up in the pictures when the National Anthem came on.

And rode around on Ariels, BSAs Matchless , Triumphs, Velocettes and other fine machines

Which were put together using IMPERIAL nuts and bolts, tightened with IMPERIAL spanners. Nuts and bolts and spanners that conformed to the standards laid down by the Imperial Institute. The Whitworth , British Standard (fine and coarse) and Cycle Engineers Institute standard. Abbreviated W (or Whit) BSF BSC , CEI .

There were, we were vaguely aware, other strange and exotic types of nuts and bolts, and spanners. Metric ones for those fools so stupid and disloyal as to buy vehicles from forn parts. And weird ones used by the very very rare machines (or cars) that cames from the USA. The latter particularly reviled because they ALMOST fitted proper (ie Imperial) nuts and bolts and spanners, but not quite. They had abbreviations if you looked (after stripping the trhead or rounding the head of the bolt) of AF, ANF ANC.

Nowadays, the Empire, alas, is no more. But some of those noble machines, Ariels, BSAs Matchless , Triumphs, Velocettes etc are still around. And those who work on them still need IMPERIAL spanners, nuts, bolts , taps dies.

So it is VERY ANNOYING when the latter are advertised as Imperial and on examination turn out not to be Imperial at all but are bloody Yank threads. They do not fit.

Imperial means Whitworth, British Standard or CEI. Yank sizes are not imperial.

Spread the word please, it is really starting to piss me off , proper like.

(And I trust any fool of a mod who galloped in here yelling "wrong forum" is now suitably ashamed and abashed)

[McJim]

Bah, just drill out all the threads and fit metric helicoils to 'em - get with the programme.

[Crisis management]

You're dramatising, it's only the half inch threads that don't work, nothing some thick loctite can't sort....or a hammer.

Actually, I have a 10 litre paint pail here full of all those sorts of bolts & crap, unfortunately the're probably more likely to be SAE stuff than Whitworth. It's a bastard sorting through it to find the right bolt or nut, takes forever!

[Motu]

Whitworth and BSF have a 55 degree thread form - American coarse and fine,Unifined coarse and fine,and all metric threads are 60 degree.They are close until 1/2in where it goes all wrong.So the only difference between SAE and ISO metric threads is the pitch.

SAE nuts and bolts have Imperial dimensions...shank and hex sizes - but are not Imperial threads.They are Unified threads - that is where the Yanks said we are right because we have more money than anyone else....so will change it to our way,and you can all follow along.

Then the rest of the world said metric is better,WE are going to do it this way from now on and call it ISO.The Yanks have been in a huff ever since.