Found this neat little gem in the CHRR swap meet today...the craftsmanship of the box and the brass looking latch look 70s at the earliest...was told it was for tinkering with nitro....I googled the name and phone number and no hits...anyone ever heard of this company or what this thing does?
It's for checking the specific gravity of the fuel mix to determine the % of Nitro in the mix. Must be early: once you get into Nitro, you usually go all in(100%), but you could still check to see if your supplier was selling you "pure & uncut" instead of adding Methanol to drop the % & up his profit on the sale!
It is a hydrometer for checking nitro percentage. They are still in use today. Tuning a pro nitro car is so precise now, even if a team is using straight nitro, they still want to know exactly how pure it is. After 9-11 US made nitro was impossible to get because of homeland security regulations. Pro teams started using nitro made in China. Interestingly, while most Chinese products are inferior, the best US nitro checked 98% while the nitro from China is pure 100%. To buy nitro now, a team needs to have one of the crew certified by homeland security to purchase it. Hard to date the one you have. I bought a new hydrometer in 2010 for $180 and it came in a box just like yours. When we went to Bonneville, Steve Faria generously gave us 5 gallons of nitro ($300 worth!)
When I crewed on fuel car in the mid 90s one of my jobs was mixing fuel. We used a hydrometer just like that. It didn't have a So Cal fuel label on the box but otherwise it was identical.
The phone number has a 213 area code that doesnt cover that city anymore...also cant seem to find the company online ...I dont think its super old either but am guessing later 60s to 70s? I only paid $20 I think its a really neat piece....anyone ever heard of that company? Dean....cool info...thanks!
it looks like you may be missing a piece. i cant tell from the pics. to mix nitro you need to know the temp of the fuel as the percentage changes based on the temp. if the hydrometer ( glass lead weighted float) does not have a thermometer scale inside with the scale for the percentage then you need a thermometer. the pics look like a thermometer not a hydrometer. the hydrometers come in two percentages 0-50 and 50-100. also there is a methanol hydrometer to check for water in the methanol. first you measure specific gravity and temp then compare those findings to a correction sheet to find out what percent you have. cool find they are readily available at kinsler inj.
There used to be a gas station there if I remember correctly. Long gone now. There's a So-Cal racing fuel in Downey, not sure if it's the same.
The fact that the state is labeled as CA tells me its newer than you think. The usage of a 2 letter abbreviation for states didnt come around until the 80s if im not mistaken. Before that it would have been labeled as "Calif" or maybe "Cal". I remember in grade school back in the 80s we had to relearn state abbreviations because of this. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
SoCal racing catered to Sprint Cars and was finally located in Downey .It was run by the Howard family as Glenn was the patriarc, His sons were Gary, Steve, and ?. ? took the SoCal fuel business and went back east with it. Glenn sold fuel to the racers as well as a dealer for many sprint car parts. His trailer was at Ascot park every Sat to service the racers with parts and tires, but the track had its own fuel station. Glenn passed away years ago and Steve ran the shop till the economy and racing itself took a hit and finally shut the shop down eairler this year.
Same type of thing Milner was using to mix his nitro when the bimbo dropped her cheetos into it......