Looking for information on a piece of Manley garage equipment.

[chistech]

I picked this up the other day at an old garage that went out of business a couple years ago. The family has just decided to start cleaning it out and selling items. This was over in the corner and they gave it to me. I was hoping someone might have an old Manley catalog and the could tell me exactly what it is. I was hoping it was designed for holding rims to start tires on but I’m not sure. It appears to have been made in September of 1943 and the catalog number is 278. Any ideas?

[Mark Wetherbee]

It’s a tire spreading unit of some sort, so it holds the tire in such a way as to patch the inside easier.

[3makes]

Somewhere here, in my files, I have a Manley Garage and Wrecker supplies catalog and may be able to find it. It has all kinds of garage and wrecker items used to operate a business in the pre WWII era.  If interested, PM me.

[joe_padavano]

It's used like this.

 

[Bloo]

OOOh... that's a fancy one.

[1912Staver]

If you do your own tire repairs , like I usually do , they are quite handy.

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

I recognized that at once!   Used one a lot in the '50s .  Does that make me OLD?

 

  Ben

[joe_padavano]

1 hour ago, Ben Bruce aka First Born said:

I recognized that at once!   Used one a lot in the '50s .  Does that make me OLD?

 

  Ben

 

I'm pretty sure that's not what makes you old. 😉

 

(Sorry, but that was waaaay too easy to pass up)

Edited June 2, 2021 by joe_padavano (see edit history)

[60FlatTop]

We had the fancy one at my grandfather's tire shop. It had an electric motor and the tire would rest on a drive belt to rotate it.

 

We also had a dipping can and a sponge to remove water from casings that had been outside. The was no running water in the shop so we always had a 5 gallon bucket of dipped water next to the spreader. That water used to get pretty murky. Reaching into it to wring out the sponge gave rise to "The Legend of the Bucket Monster"

[joe_padavano]

10 minutes ago, 60FlatTop said:

We had the fancy one at my grandfather's tire shop. It had an electric motor and the tire would rest on a drive belt to rotate it.

 

We also had a dipping can and a sponge to remove water from casings that had been outside. The was no running water in the shop so we always had a 5 gallon bucket of dipped water next to the spreader. That water used to get pretty murky. Reaching into it to wring out the sponge gave rise to "The Legend of the Bucket Monster"

 

Look again, this isn't a tire changer. It's a tire spreader to make it easier to apply a patch to the inside.

[chistech]

5 hours ago, joe_padavano said:

It's used like this.

 

Actually mine looks just like that and I appreciate the photo. I was hoping it was for holding a rim to put a tire on. Oh well. It does work but I don’t pull modern tubeless tires off and fix them so maybe I’ll take it to Hershey. Thanks again.

[Bloo]

Joe has it right, that is to spread the tire so you can grind in there to scuff the tire up prior to applying a patch. I can almost smell the stench of burning rubber from here.