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The US uses different bolt threads than the rest of the world. Just today I had to buy an 1/4 inch long 8-32 threaded screw to fix our stroller. The 8 refers to
by s_tec 6y ago
The US uses different bolt threads than the rest of the world. Just today I had to buy an 1/4 inch long 8-32 threaded screw to fix our stroller. The 8 refers to a standard diameter in the US system, and the 32 means "32 threads per inch".
- chrisseaton 6y agoHow does this work now that almost all products are global and most are manufactured outside the US? Does a Ford engine get designed in both customary for in the US and in metric for the rest of the world?
- toast0 6y agoAt this point, new cars are 100% metric, with the exception of tire sizes, which are still inches (usually integer inches, sometimes half inches too), and have been for a pretty long time (switching seems to have started in the late 80s / early 90s where cars would have both types of fasteners, and by the end of the 90s, it was just metric). This probably has something to do with the increasingly global supply chains, and increasingly global parts suppliers. Oh, and the speedometer and the odometer. The digital ones are probably counting meters and converting though.
- chrisseaton 6y agoIt’s funny that the super-American icon of the car has switched but that this hasn’t caused everyone else to switch. My image of America is a parent and child working on their car together in their garage. Would have thought that would have gotten everyone into metric over the last few decades.
- ghaff 6y agoAs other comments have said, Why bother? Whether I use miles or km on the road is pretty much irrelevant. Everyone’s kitchens are filled with mostly US measurement stuff. And truth be told if I’m weighing things I switch effortlessly between grams and ounces on my digital scale. Some people may but I’ve no particular ideological position on it.
- toast0 6y agoI mean, over the last few decades, working on cars is harder. Maybe in part because the fastener sizes are tricky, but mostly because things are much more complex. Anyway, the US already has the metric system for things that matter; science and most manufacturing. For things with wide reach, like distance signs, and speed limits, and quantities at the grocery store, those tend to be in customary units, because the switching cost is too high for the benefit.
- Blackthorn 6y agoCar stuff is usually metric, in my experience. Plenty of things end up as imperial elsewhere in the world, though. My lathe and milling machine dials are graduated in thous (thousandths of an inch). I've seen those on YouTube channels in other countries.