Cars And Metric Fasteners ?

Most are metric nowadays, no matter where they are made.

Sometimes, but not always.

It's hard these days to tell what is made in the US and what is imported.

The absolute worst was a Ford Escort my girlfriend had. The water pump was held on with three bolts, one metric and two SAE.

--scott

Back in the old days, it used to be that the Europeans seemed to favor the 13mm, 15mm, and 17mm sized nuts and the Japanese, the

10mm,12mm,14mm. The worst sized nut of them all is the 11mm. It's like the orphan of the wrench world. The 13mm is a special size because it can traverse between both the metric and SAE worlds. :-)

Let me put it this way...nowadays my small toolbox contains metric, and essentially nothing else. I keep the others in the rolling toolbox, but wont throw them away. I still need them from time to time, but not very often.

Me too. I did buy a SAE socket recently. It was for a Ford axle nut and was something like 1.25 inches. My assumption was the the nut was metric but that was what was on the shelves at Checkers. They also make great paperweights.

Also 19mm is 3/4 inch

Bob wrote in news:ic6d1q$kof$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal- september.org:

Just about all of them since (very roughly) the late-'80s.

Some older US technology still in production might still be Imperial, but anything designed in the last 20-25 years is going to be Metric. I'm sure there are a few exceptions to the rule somewhere, though.

And there are a few socket sizes that are so close as to be just interchangeable enough to fool people into thinking they are one when they are actually the other.

Domestic cars designed since at least the late-'80s have been designed in Metric from the ground-up, with particular exceptions where accommodation has been made for consumer preference, such as the ability of pickups to receive 4'x8' sheets in their beds.

Large sizes cross over well. I've been using 1in and larger sockets that are older than I am. I'll still probably buy a set of larger metric sockets anyway as one of these days my luck will probably run out.

I'm hoping that in the age of electric cars with no engine, no cooling system, no fuel injection, no ignition system, no lubrication system etc, etc, etc, will greatly simplify our tool boxes.

In the future they'll be reduced to the size of a tackle box and contain a can of WD-40, a Swiss Army knife, a voltmeter, a Slim-Jim (teriyaki flavor) a church key and some pocket change. :-)

I don't thing suspensions and drive lines are going to go away... so there will still be axle nuts, etc and so on.

Bret wrote in news:kgcvxjnqosye$.10mxi97r0go72$.dlg@

40tude.net:

that is the 18mm and it isn`t close enough most of the time to work well. KB

dsi1 wrote in news:UKCFo.45947$Mk2.4463 @newsfe13.iad:

the 11mm is very close to 7/16. have used them interchangeably when 2 wrenches are needed. KB

Kevin Bottorff wrote in news:ic7bt7$284$ snipped-for-privacy@news.albasani.net:

Bottorff's comment is stunningly stupid. He's either a troll or has no clue how to use Google or a $5 metric-conversion calculator.

19mm = 0.748" 3/4" = 0.75" 18mm = 0.709"

I think you'd need a very large hammer to pound that 18mm socket onto a

3/4" fastener.

the escort is an all-euro design. i find it hard to believe that any sae fasteners could have been original and not "retrofit".

smaller stuff, yes, but a lot of larger equipment/vehicles are still fractional.

i think we need to change that. we've had decimal money since the coinage act of 1792 - there's no logical reason not to use a decimal system for everything else as well.

I'm wondering what happened to the other three fasteners...

My guess is that some cars will have transmissions with driveshafts and half-shafts. The cheaper cars might not have any of those. The suspension could be something new or pretty conventional. I'm just guess here though...

I have the advantage of a socket set with no 19mm and a 3/4 -19mm marked on the case.

I wouldn't if I was you.