VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1912-1928 Which starter brand was used in Chevrolets?

Below on this web site http://www.scripophily.net/benhelinc1.html
there is some information I wonder about:



Was this another starter brand competing the one Kettering invented? Did Durant use the Bendix starter to avoid the GM management from revealing his success to overtake GM in 1915?

Hi Sloan,
I always thought that the Bendix drive was the mechanisim which aloud the starter gear to retract from the ring gear once the engine started. This gear was mounted on a worm gear with a spring which caused it to retract away from the ring gear. I do beleive that the starting motors were made by Delco-Remy.
John

They are talking about the Bendix starter drive, not the brand of starter.

:) :grin:

My Dad has a 21 490 that has a "Remy" starter and generator. They are square framed units. There was also Autolight that had more rounded corners on the square frame. Not sure if autolight was used on chevys or not but my 23 Olds truck which has the mason style 4 cyl eng uses Autolight. My 28 Chevy has "Delco Remy" electricals. My 24 Olds touring uses "Delco" equipment and they look very similar to the Delco Remy. Not sure of the year Delco and Remy merged to Delco Remy but I suspect it was around 26-28 era.

First came Autolight, Remy ~ 1922, Delco-Remy ~ 1927

Bendix is a type of starter engagment.

Autolight is actually "Electric Auto-lite Co." toledo ohio

Does anyone know the difference between the "Kettering" starter and the Bendix one, or is the Bendix only part of the "Kettering", getting commission on the system?

Anybody having drawings/pictures of the two I have mentioned here?

I am not checking the starters from 20ties, but would like to know the history from the very start, as to this vital part of the car.

:vcca:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kettering

One of the founders of delco,developed the electric starter

I still am not sure about who was the inventor of the starter or vital parts of it.

On the web site: http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_vincent_bendix.htm

it is written: In 1910, Vincent Bendix patented the Bendix drive for electric starters, an improvement to the hand cranked starters of the time. The first automobile to use the Bendix starter drive was the 1914 Chevrolet "Baby Grand". The Bendix starter became a standard in all cars produced in the United States.

It may look like Bendix made that special gear/wheel and thereafter Kettering could have used those parts to make his starter. Did Chevrolet(Durant) have so close connections with GM that they shared the same suppliers in those years?

Here is the link to Kettering: http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blignition.htm

telling he sent in the application in 1911, but did not get his patent until 1915. (Long time?)

Here are the patent papers & drawings:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=7TllAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA3&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPA1,M1

I have no intention of discriminating Mr. Kettering from the honour of making this invention. But did he use the Bendix wheel/axle to construct his own starter? Why is Bendix also claiming to have made a starter, even before Kettering?

Someone wanting to comment on this?

As mentioned earlier, "Bendix" made the starter drive, and it wasn't a brand name for a starter back in the early days. The term "Bendix starter" is usually used when a starter motor is the type with a Bendix drive, hence the sentence "The Bendix starter became a standard in all cars produced in the United States."

:) :grin:

OK. So the Bendix system was part of the starter Kettering developed.

Thanks for the clarifications.

:vcca:

Did you know that Kettering invented the motor for the electric cash register before he invented the electric starter. This prepared him for the task of inventing the automotive self-starter, using the storage battery that ran the electrical system....What made his invention of the starter succeed was using the bendix drive and getting the electric motor up to speed before it engaged the flywheel, and not having to start the starting motor from a dead start engaged to the flywheel, think about it!

Thanks, MrMack.
I appreciate history, the more the better.

With reference to the use of Bendix system in the 1914 Chevys, does anyone know what system/"brand" Kettering used for the starter in the Buick in 1912?

:vcca:

The electrical system developed by Charles "Boss" Kettering was
given the brand name "DELCO",named after the Dayton Electrical
Laboritories Company.
Delco existed as a separate brand up until mid 1927,when it merged with "REMY" to become "DELCO-REMY".

Interesting thread, and this is what I have been able to find out.
Lots was happening at the time and it gets confusing.
Just a detail Chris, but the name is Dayton Engineering Laboritories Company. Shortened to Delco,the company was owned by Kettering and his partner Deeds. They had invented the coil/distributor ignition system for the 1910 Cadillac which was so revolutionary and superior that the system was simply called Delco Ignition by everyone therafter, especially on the Continent.
Then in 1911 Henry Leland of Cadillac engaged Kettering to come up with a workable self starter after he lost a friend from complications to an injury whilst hand cranking a Cadillac.
The system was based on a design of Clyde Coleman's from 1903 that was not successful but Kettering made it so. It was a starter/generator permanently meshed with the flywheel and it used 4x6V batteries in series (24V)to start but then reverted to series (6V) for lights and charging. The starter and lighting system stunned the industry when first introduced on the 1912 Cadillac.
The next year Victor Bendix came up with his Bendix drive gear that enable starters to be engaged and then disengaged, and practically all starters today work the same. Bendix licenced the idea to the Eclipse Machine Company of Elmira NY and they supplied the gear assemblies in all sizes and variants to industry. By 1940 they had made 60 million of them.

Bendix went on to become more involved in 4 wheel brake design that they bought from France (Perrot), carburettors(stromberg) and all manner of things to do with aircraft etc. Why GM never used the quite superior Bendix brake system I do not know, because even cheap Whippets were using it as far back as 1926. Buick and Chev designs of the late 20's are quite comical by comparison.
Bendix are now part of the Honeywell group who also own the Autolite name. Autolite was for a good while owned by Willys Overland. My only experience with Autolite is on 1930's Hudsons and I can assure you it is pretty ordinary stuff and not in the same league as Delco-Remy for quality.
Delco was sold to GM in 1916.

Cheers,
Geoff.

Thanks for the detailed history of this small but quite essencial part to get cars easily started and ladies more able to enjoy their own driving.

As I see it, some few bright heads made their useful parts for Kettering to assemble and invent the starter, revolutionize the starting of specially cars with big engines.

The first Chevrolet (Classic Six) was also equipped with a self-starter but that was air driven, not electrically. Anyone knowing that part of the starter history, And where is the Gray and Davis in the picture?

A Simms magneto and compressed-air starter were installed at first, but later models got a Gray and Davis electric starter. The car had electric headlights and cowl lights as standard equipment.

Here is an ad for G & D: http://cgi.ebay.com/1913-Vintage-Ad...3559QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem?refid=store

:vcca:

Oldsmobile used an air starter for the first time in 1911 on the Autocrat which had a 471 cid 40 hp engine. The Limited had a displacement of 707 cid 60hp. Winton and Locomobile also had huge 700 somthing cid engines and I think they also used air starters. I can't imagine hand cracking one of those monsters! If anyone has a copy of "The Automobile Trade Directory" from around or 1910 there may be some info on self starter mechanisims as some were sold as aftermarket add-ons as well as to car manufacturers. A book called "The Treatis Of the Auotmobile" might be something to look for. I have those books but they are buried somewhere around her in boxes from my last move. I have a 1909 trade directory, but don't remember if it had anything about self starters in that addition. Olds first used electric starters in 1913 or 1914 but I can't tell you who made them or who made the air starters, but I highly suspect it could have been Ingersol possibly Worthington for the air starters. Some set ups had a air storage tank and a small compressor that would drive off the fan belt and the driver would have to fill the air tank after the car started so he would have air for the next start and let the compressor off the belt manually. He could also use the comressor to fill the tires. Some had fittings to fill the tank with the hand tire pump if the car didn't start with the stored air or air wasn't stored up. Most cars at the time used Ignition Drycell Batterys of 1.5 volts each in a battery of 6 cells to get the coil(s) to fire and then would switch over to the magneto to save the batterys for the next start. Some large stationary engines used shotgun shell starter mechanisims or had a trip device on a magneto that would fire the plug when the engine was rolled backwards against compression stroke. I don't think anything like that was used on cars, but I bet someone at least tried it back then as every town had a "tinker" or two lurking in a blacksmith shop or machine works. One thing to add , I had heard from my Grandpa years ago that Kettering wasn't friends with the fellow who was injured cranking the Cadillac on the Windsor bridge at Detroit, he was just moved by the sadness of the good samaritan who ended up losing his life helping out the lady whos' engine died on the bridge and was causing a traffic jam and decided "something had to be done about that". The fellow died of gangrene from a compound fracture to his arm. Must have been a heck of a kickback. Not sure if that was all true or not, but Grandpa never steered me wrong that I knew of. He was born in 1906 and was always facinated by autos and trucks until the day he died. Sorry about the long post. I was also facinated about those early starters and automotive inventions since I was a kid.