Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Martin & Schwartz gas pump computer face numbers

Hello everyone, I bought this M-S 80 a couple of weeks ago and have some questions on the computer face. Why isn't there any numbers on the price per gallon wheels? The rest of the dials have numbers. Has any one seen this before? Thanks.

Could have been turned as it didn't matter what the price was when used on a farm/commercial fueling, they weren't selling fuel.
They only needed to know how many gallons were going into each vehicle.

I haven't done anything with the pump since I got it, just stuck it away for another date. I will take the face off of it to look at it closer to see if they have been turned.

Take the faceplate off and find out why.

As mentioned - it could have been be a farm pump. No need to have a price-per-gallon on one of those.

But . . .

This WAS a farm pump for it's entire life. It was never repainted after it left the factory, and it does have price-per-gallon showing. Although the rest of the VR is built like nothing I have ever seen before.

If you look closely (sorry for the crappy photo), you will notice that the 'price' is something like 29-cents per gallon, but the top row of numbers on the faceplate/VR are NOT 'price' like normal, but 'Total Numbers of Gallons Pumped'. And there isn't even holes for the second row of numbers.



I'm not sure what is going on behind this faceplate with the VR. I do know that the other opening on the back door was blocked off at the factory and there is not another faceplate.

Later . . .

Jim

More than likely Jim's American was used for Commercial dispensing [charge accounts, cab, trucking etc] where gallons were kept track of an a bill sent for total gallons used during the month @ price @ time of delivery. Very few farms/ranches would have bought a NEW pump, fuel supplier usually furnished the pump just for buying his fuel.

Numbers not indented and paint wore off after time. Probably steel price wheels on the bottom.

Keith

I have never seen a computer before with indented numbers on the top wheels, but not on the price wheels.

I have had pumps with the price per gallon wheels being steel and not aluminum. If someone swapped out the the top half of the veeder and replaced it with a veeder with indented numbers and left the variator with the steel wheels would that not be feasible?

I didnt say it was not possible, just that I have never seen one.

I have a 8 inch computer in a G&B 80 with half smooth and half indented wheels on the same side.

I have NOS small lower price wheels available.

Email me outside this site if you are interested.

jhsim@swbell.net

Jack Sim

I have this pump stored away from my home for now. But in the next few days I will get to it and pull one of the faces off and let everyone know what in find. Thanks for all the input.

I took the face plate off this pump tonight to take a closer look at it. The upper dials are indented and the price per gal dials are smooth. It looks like the price per gallon dials had decals on them because I can see some numbers on them towards the back of the dial and pieces of decal that were dried up and fell off the dial laying to the side.

I think some of you are missing the point, you are assuming that every pump we find is original. Original hose, original nozzle, original computer... No one looked at pumps as we do, they were just a piece of equipment that went between the tank in the ground and the car that was getting five gallons of gasoline. When something went wrong with the pump, no one cared if the numbers were indented, no one cared what color they were, and if it was a pump used commercialy, no one cared what face was on the pump or what computer was inside.
If any of you have ever read any computer literature, you would find that the brand new computer, in a brand new pump was only guaranteed for less than two years. If the average pump got a replacement computer every two years, how many computers did some of the 40s-50s pumps we find have in them?

Jack Sim