Reply To: Mystery discs – what are they?

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

An anecdote. Apropro StevieGTR, Nick & Bernard's comments above.

In the period up to the mid-1960's, the GPO as it was then used to always buy Morris vehicles. And always with the smallest engine possible, eg Minor vans were fitted with an 803cc engine. This continued until BMC stopped producing the 803 cc engine which meant that the Minor vans were fitted with the then standard engine – 1098cc. Now a lot of the staff, especially on the engineering side, were young men, and we all know what young men are like especially when it came to vehicles that they did not own.The inevitable result was accidents, and so the GPO decided to fit a restrictor plate between the carburettor and the inlet manifold thus reducing the amount of fuel/air flow. This plate reduced the throat size from I think about 1 1/8" down to 3/4" thus reducing both the acceleration and the maximum speed available. Needless to say, there were complaints, usually along the lines of being passed by doubledecker buses when going up hill, but to no avail. A select few did have the plate removed but only for those technicians that the mechanics trusted.

Mind you, there were some idiots driving for the GPO back then, me included, but for me it was only 3 years and then promotion called.

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw