MTFCA Forum

These are on a 1911. Anyone know the make?

These really do make a difference. Duncan and Fraser, South Australian Ford distributors, offered these in a suite of accessories in their catalog. Theirs were Richards Wilcox brand made in England. This brand's one failure was the lack of bushings, so if they were not regularly oiled, they wore considerably.
I have them as issued, on my roadster and on Henrietta.

Allan from down under.

Thanks, Ed!

Allan, the ad Ed posted seems to indicate they do have bushings?

Quite possibly Bob. Better that they do. The English ones I see do not have bushes, and finding a set good enough to fit bushes is often difficult, the wear being so extensive.

Allan from down under.

There were similar ones as well --
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I had noted that these were Flex-O-Plane when I copied the image
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I usually refer to these as "H&D type" shock absorbers for model T Fords. I do that because about ten or twelve years ago, I got curious about them (I had had a nice set of them a long time ago) and wanted to know more about them. At that time, google did a nice job of finding a great deal of history on them. Unfortunately, a partial meltdown of my computer about 2018 wiped out all I had found. I have tried since to re-find some of what I had, but with little success.
If I recall correctly, the original patents were held by the two people, Mr. H and Mr. D (I forget their actual names?). They had some manufactured to their specifications and then sold them to various outlets themselves. Lacking the financial backing to handle the demand, they licensed the patents to numerous companies around the globe to be manufactured by others. They did not enforce any quality control of specifications, resulting in more companies avoiding paying royalties by making cheaper poor quality units.
The actual H&D ones are generally fairly well made, as are quite a few others I have seen over the years. The actual H&D ones I had and have seen did not have bushings in them, which is a downside, although they did seem to wear well. However, a lot of single arm cheaper ones were also made that I personally would not use myself.
I never had my set on a car. I ended up selling them for a good price to someone that wanted them a lot more than I did. I have spoken with several T owners that did use them on their cars, and the reviews were always that they liked them and the way they handled.