In all my research I've never seen "Lafayette" listed in any rally book as a
supplier of rally equipment. After looking at the photos I think Walt is
correct, it's probably a home brew using Lafayette counters, similar to what
many did with Veeter-Root counters.

Bill


--- On Tue, 10/21/08, WaltKammer@... <WaltKammer@...> wrote:

> From: WaltKammer@... <WaltKammer@...>
> Subject: Re: [Historic Rallying] Lafayette rally instruments odometers
(mid-60's)
> To: historicrally@yahoogroups.com
> Cc: WaltKammer@...
> Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 7:06 AM
> Steve,
>
> Can't tell for sure from the photos since there is NOT
> a close up of the
> odometers in the group which I found, but I would make the
> comment that since
> the car has a PA dealer on it that Lafayette was a popular
> consumer-oriented
> electronics and electrical shop located throughout the
> northeastern USA back in
> the 1960's through sometime around 1973 or so when they
> went out of
> business. I know that they sold a line of 12 volt
> electromechanical counters (some
> with reverse, manual reset, and paused switches on them).
>
> I myself used many of their counters for a homemade
> odometer on my rally MGB
> during the day. In fact I still have a couple of them
> around in my junk
> bins. None the less, I think that your characterization of
> the setup as a
> "Lafayette Rally Instrument(s)" is likely not
> real. If you post a better close up
> of the electromechanical counter I bet I might recognize
> it. The
> traditional setup was "home made" by the various
> car owners and usually consisted of a
> speedometer shop fabricated "T" fitting which
> would go behind the stock
> speedometer.
>
> There would then be a mechanical speedometer cable which
> would run to an
> accessible location. At that location there would be
> either a "home made" gear
> train (to get the number of revolutions per mile down to
> something like 100
> revolutions per mile).
>
> The better setups used a plastic gearbox with
> interchangeable gears (4 of
> them). Using a simple calculation the navigator could
> "correct" the odometer
> calibration factor to "official rally miles"
> through consultation of the table
> after running the odo-check. The table would give the
> "new" combination of
> the 4 little gears that would result in 100 revolutions of
> the mechanical
> cable per true rallymaster mile.
>
> ON THE OUTPUT of the gearbox (either the homemade one, or
> the 4-gear
> commercial box), there would be a cam and a microswitch
> wired in series with the
> battery and the counters. For each revolution of the
> cable, the microswitch
> would click out one pulse that corresponded to 0.01 miles
> (or kilometers). And
> that was that. Very simple and most people who were
> serious about the sport
> made one (or had an engineer buddy make one for them).
>
> I have several of the little gearboxes which I could post a
> photo of should
> anyone be interested. They were a specialty item but were
> sold by several
> rally shops, Competition Limited (owned by the recently
> deceased Gene Henderson)
> sold them. In the end, this setup was a cheap alternative
> to the
> commercial Halda and Gemini units which did the same thing
> using metal gears. But
> both of the latter were strictly mechanical whereas the
> setups like yours was
> electromechanical in nature.
>
> Some variations included a front wheel hub driven
> mechanical cable that
> would supposedly "eliminate" mileage errors due
> to driven wheel spinning, but
> most rallies of that timeframe were not "zero
> hero" events where mileage
> measurements and calculations to the 0.001 minute
> determined the winners and losers.
> Of course, the Halda SpeedPilot crowd were not up to that
> accuracy or
> resolution anyway, and believe me there was many a fast
> event won by
> SpeedPilot-based crews on both sides of the Atlantic.
>
> If you post the photo I will see if the font on the name
> looks like the
> Lafayette Electronics logo format.
>
> Regards,
> Walt Kammer
>
>
>
> In a message dated 10/21/2008 9:34:20 A.M. Eastern Daylight
> Time,
> milano164@... writes:
>
>
>
>
> I recently acquired a Sunbeam with a set of Lafayette rally
> instruments in
> the location of the cubby box.
> It is a really nice setup with two pairs.
>
> I am trying to find out more information on these
> odometers. I am guessing
> they are early "impulse" versions since there is
> a cord with an RCA jack that
> looks like it might have plugged in near the speedo.
> Does anyone remember this company? Not sure if they will
> ever work again but
> they are neat.
>
> (I will have to talk to the Electrical engineeers at
> work.... surely there
> would be a way to generate a signal to use these odometers
> again...)
>
> I added a couple of photos to the group. It really is a
> nice original car.
>
> Steve
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
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