"gotta a liquid mercury roll bar in the trunk"

every light switch in my house growing up had mercury in it, it turned a small light on in the switch itself when it was in the down position in order to make it easier to find in the dark. My home thermostat still relies on mercury to this day.

 

I also had a small glass bottle of the stuff. I finally gave it to one of the County run collection drives for pesticides, old prescriptions and paint.
I was glad to get rid of it. Had it spilled on the carpet, it would have been a real big problem.
It's not one of the "health risks" that you scoff at, not at all.
It can blind you and I can't imagine life without sight. Or, worse yet, being responsible for some kid getting a their hands on it because I still had it a round.
This isn't like lead paint or an old can of pesticide...this could really screw you up or even kill you.

 

I know that my Dad had a pair of them when I was a kid that were supposed to have come from Arkansas State Troopers cars...beats me as I was just a kid and Dad was always trading and swapping a lot of cool shit, but I do remember those things being heavy as hell for the size they were...

Sorry can't be of more help as to what they really are other than they were called mercury bars where I'm from...

 

Back in the late 60's or early 70's a friend of mine's Father had some gadget in his trunk that may be what (or similar) this is...It was some type of gyroscope deal that supposedly worked to keep the car from rolling and so on....
He swore by it and had in in a '65 LAVENDER colored 4 door Chevy.....
Can't say if it really worked or not, but several years later, the frame cracked on that lavender beauty....
Cheers...................

 

Same here! Maybe "liquid mercury roll bar" was just the catchy product name rather than the actual material? Sounds a lot more catchy than "cast iron plate between two springs roll bar".
I'm calling B.S.. This sounds more like all the goofy mileage improvement devices we've seen marketed over the years.
I find it hard to believe anyone (other than the government) could afford to purchase the amount of mercury required to make any real difference in weight transfer.

 

Mercury was used in the hat making industry many yrs. ago...and it caused the workers to go crazy...hence the term "Mad Hatters"
__________________________________
LIFE'S A GAMBLE......LET EM' ROLL

 

bingo, I think now a days, over 5# is an EPA no-no, back then, probably not so regulated.

 

Now I've heard everything. Advertising execs wouldn't do that. Next you're going to tell us that Ford Galaxy's and Plymouth Satellite's aren't really from outer space, and Girl Guide cookies aren't made with real Girl Guides.

 

Yeah, same here. I remember a thermometer broke at home one day and my folks let me play with the mercury on a dinner plate. Probably got washed down the drain with the dishwater after that, and we ate on the plate that night. But I turned out OK<click> OK<click> OK.

If it's really mercury...you don't want any part of it. It'd probably cost $$$ to dispose of it properly...and create a nice little toxic waste zone if it isn't disposed of properly.

If it's a sash weight and two springs...<shrug> you've got a piece of...err...history there. The problem is telling the difference between the two.

 

I think i've got one of these out in my shop right now. I can dig it out and take some pics if anyone is interested...

 

You all remember Pinewood Derbies right? I worked at a PPG research lab in the early sixties and one of my buddies brought in his son's pinewood derby car to see if "we" could make it more competitive. Don't forget this was son's project-yeah right. We put a partially filled tube of mercury mounted length wise in the rear of the car, figuring the mercury would add weight going down the inclined track and shift the weight to the rear on the bottom level portion of the track. If we added up the time spent on this project we probably spent several hundred of PPG's money. Did it work you ask? Yeah, too good. When the car reached the bottom of the track it would do wheelies and slow down. Bummer for us and the boy, but the boy's buddies thought it was way cool. Sorry for the long post, but I haven't thought about this for 50 years.

 

Back in the late 70's or early 80's some stock cars had mercury in the frames. Some sanctioning bodies required certain weight percentages for each side of the car. Some racers would fill the right frame rail with mercury so it would pass tech. Then they'd open a valve and jack the right side up so the mercury could run to the left frame rail through a cross member or they'd use an electric fuel pump to pump it across. Race officials caught pit crews from a couple of teams trying to sweep mercury off pit road after pit stops. Mercury is bad stuff to handle but it down right nasty when it vaporizes. If that mercury had dripped on a hot exhaust pipe and vaporized it could have killed someone.

 

in theory, if the weight is below roll center, it could help reduce body roll, the lower the weight, the more effective it would be. in practice, i doubt you could have enough dynamic weight to matter.

 

I saw a tv show with Randy Ema talking about Duesenbergs, and he said the crankshaft on a Duesenberg straight eight has a small box of mercury on it (at the end) to help the crank turn over. That small box weighs 40 lbs.!

 

Fascinating to learn about these things on the HAMB. Never heard of Mg in race cars.

We played with the stuff as kids in the 50's. Thermometers, thermostats and some electrical switches were sources. Of course we also rode in the back of pickups, had chemistry sets capable of producing explosives, chewed on our lead-painted toys, used carbon tet cleaners, had X-ray machines to check the fit of our new shoes (if you held the button down long enough your toes got warm), and got mouthfulls of leaded gas siphoning it out of Dad's truck. When I discovered Ham Radio I usually held solder in my teeth to keep my hands free when soldering, and we pulled high voltage transformers dripping with PCB oils out of surplus power company cans. When I die I hope the government doesn't declare my corpse an ecological disaster.

 

I worked on a movie set a couple years ago and the camera crane truck used mercury as ballest that was pumped back & forth to neutral balance the camera equipment and cameraman on the other end. Once balanced you could raise and lower the cameraman with a couple fingers on one hand quite easily.

 

iv never heard of this before.. i would love to see a picture..

 

I am quite certain it is not packaged in a glass tube for this purpose. As a firefighter with some haz-mat back ground, removing it would not be a big deal, disposal is another thing all together, but if you have a huge lab around your area, they may be interested in taking it off your hands. If they did not want it, they would likely know where you could turn it in.

 

My neighbor gave me something like this..Im wondering if its full of Mercury or not, dam thing is heavy as shit
was commercially made, not something home made..but old
looks like the out side is aluminum extusion with a steel bottom

Its about 26" long
6 or 8" wide
and 3 or 4 " in height
with end caps that have a bolt down tab to attach it into the trunk

he said it was for traction, weight transfer
was going to keep it around for wintertime and put it in the back of my pick up truck, Hell i thought it was just full of concrete er something

Its stashed away somewhere, I think i still got it

anyone got pictures of these things
I'll look to see if i kept it or not

 

This is a very interesting thread......I dig it!

 

Not a mercury story.
But in circle track cars it was lead in the tube with a door. After tech when on parade lap, youd trigger the door when you where up on the banking for left side bias. On flatter tracks on parade lap you swerved the car left and right to "heat" the tires. It was a 2 in one.

 

Yep good cheater trick the weight moves to the opposite direction of transfer. Usually outlawed on all race tracks. But man is it cool to see work.

 

I'd say look for a local race track and sell it, they are not cheap so you could make some$$

 

so when is someone gonna post a few pictures of these things?

 

Here's the one i have...











Looks the same on both ends, basically appears to be a heavy weight suspended on linkage, allowed to move side/side. Movement appears to be damped by springs, possible oil damping as well. There are tuning adjustments on both ends.

 

If that roll bar is full of murcury, at $309.0 a flask (11.5 oz.) or $3433.00 per gal. it could be worth a bit.

 

Spent 36 years in health care, X-Ray/C.A.T. Scan Tech. There used to be a decompression device used in patients with bowel obstructions called a Miller-Abbott tube. It was basically a weighted naso-gatric tube (inserted through the nose into the stomach). After insertion MERCURY was instiilled through a separate tube within the tube itself, and contained in a bag, like an uninflated balloon, at the end of the tube. The weight helped the tube pass "down" through the GI tract, and could sometimes relieve an obstruction, and also remove accumulated fluids as it was connected to suction. These bags could/did rupture, and the mercury was'nt apparently that big of a deal, and would hopefully just pass naturally through the GI tract. Just thought I'd throw that out there as a questionable use of mercury and it's toxicity. Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

RE Toxicity... see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning

Remember the birth defects in Minimata, Japan and the photos of W. Eugene Smith? The Life magazine and book photos are very disturbing and troublesome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomoko_Uemura_in_Her_Bath

 

I saw one of these in the trunk of a '64 Galaxy in a junkyard years ago and thought it was some piece of industrial machinery. I had no idea it was a weight transfer device. Unfortunately the junkyard is now under a toll road so I can't go see if it's still there.

 

I saw somewhere where drag racers are using it in tubes around the rim to balance the rear tires on there cars. Not inner tubes but small tubes clipped onto the rims lip just like a weight would be. This is a currant practice used today.

MrC