How to Make Time Fly (Post # 155)

1982: The Jaeger atop the dashboard of my '73 VW van.

Still dealing with instruments on the dashboard. This time it is the Jaeger 8-day rally clock mounted in the center of the dash. 

After The Alfatross was no longer drivable in the 1970s, it seemed like Jaeger Voyant clock was going to waste.  So I took it out and discovered that although it was pretty shabby-looking, it was still perfectly functional. I marveled at how smooth and symmetrical the hole in the dash was, and assumed that the Jaeger must have been “original equipment” for The Alfatross in 1955.. I made a bracket and mounted it on the dash of my 1973 VW van where it lived for the next 30 years, impatiently timing the VW’s snail-like progress during many a cross-country adventure.

During that time, I never really thought about what clues it could provide for the Alfatross’ early history, even when I had it restored in 2013 at Masterpiece Watch Restoration LLC in preparation for re-installation. 

The Alfatross' Jaeger Voyant chronometer.

A US Air Force A10 A Jaeger chronometer from WWII.

Just this week I started doing that. At first I did not even know what to call it, exactly. That made trying to research it difficult.  Starting with the Jaeger name, “fabriqué en Suisse”, and the puzzling model name “Voyant” (“seeing” in French), I swiftly discovered that the company has been building timepieces of all types since 1833, putting clocks in automobiles almost since the first car was invented, and putting highly accurate and durable elapsed-time chronometers in aircraft and ships since before WWII. Some authorities call this type of clock a “Chronoflight”, obviously referring to its aviation forbear. The more I learned, the more I was impressed. 

An identical Jaeger Voyant mounted in a 1959 Ferrari

The Jaeger is more than just a pretty dashboard decoration. I found an image on the Web of the exact same rally chronometer mounted in the console of a 1959 Ferrari 400 Superamerica Coupe Speciale.

The clock face carries three separate dials. The perimeter dial bears 3 hands for tracking seconds, minutes, and hours, accurate to 1/5 second. The upper interior dial tracks hours clockwise with one hand, the lower tracks minutes counter clockwise with two hands. Both interior dials have round windows displaying red or green to indicate whether they are in operation or stopped. The button on the left winds the spring when pushed in, and sets the clock when pulled out. The button on the right starts the clock, freezes it, and returns it back to 60.  

Although 1900CSSZs were all “special order” cars, whether or not the Jaeger could have been original equipment needs more research. An equally likely explanation is that one of The Alfatross’ previous owners added it. Either way it is yet another indication that the car was raced or, more likely, rallied during the 14 years between its creation and when I ended up with it. Another possibly related mystery is an incomplete lighting fixture mounted to the frame on the passenger’s side beneath the dash—evidence of a rally light for a navigator?

Mystery light fixture mount back.

Mystery light fixture front.

 

Mystery light fixture socket.

Has anyone out there seen a light fixture mount like this one?  It would have had a long, flexible stem with a lamp at one end and a plug at the other to fit into the mount's socket.

The Jaeger Voyant chronometer back where it belongs in The Alfatross' dash.

 Whether the Jaeger was “original equipment” in 1955 or not, it is part of The Alfatross’ story and a clue to how it spent those missing 14 years. Now time can finally fly!

Taking The Alfatross' Temperature (Post # 154)

Three senders for both oil and coolant temperature.

Veglia oil and water temperature gauges read degrees C.

I got a haircut today for the first time in two months. The barber insisted on taking my temperature with a forehead thermometer before I could come in. Temperature is an important indicator of whether things are running properly or about to crash and burn. The Alfatross has been keeping her temperatures to herself, but that's about to change. 

Suspecting that The Alfatross' olio and acua temperature gauges were not displaying accurate information, I set about trying to figure out if the problems were due to the gauges or the senders. The only way to do that conclusively is to remove the beautiful Veglia gauges from the dash and their senders from the oil sump and the radiator hose line and bench test them. In addition to the original senders that were on the engine when I got it, I acquired two others somewhere along the way, so I included all of them in the bench tests.

The laboratory thermometer in the bath  reads 87 C but the gauge reads 100 C!

Although the senders for the olio and acua temperature gauges are calibrated the same, and could be interchangeable, they look very different. The olio sender has a long "nose" compared to the acua sender. I don't know if there is a functional reason for this. Probably not. The testing station allowed me to check the compatibility and accuracy of various gauge and sender combinations by immersing the senders in a water bath set to different temperatures. I quickly learned that here at 7,000 ft elevation water boils at 92.7 degrees C (198.9 F) so I could not test temperatures at the top of the range--which is the most critical part! Later, I learned from Joey at MoMa that if I had used commercial coolant (antifreeze) instead of just water, I could have created much higher temperatures in the test bath. I tested needle movement on the gauges and changes in resistance readings with changes in bath temperature. It was immediately apparent that at least one of the senders was inoperative and the acua gauge always seemed to read too high. All that it really told me was that I needed to take the gauges and senders to MoMa Manufacturing in Albuquerque for a "second opinion".  It took Joey at Mo-Ma only a few minutes to diagnose my problems: the acua gauge needed adjustment and the two long-nose senders were defective.  The good news is that the two short-nose senders were OK and could be put back into service.