Over the many recordings of Washideas.com, hooks, chains and pits have remained a favorite topic of some of our aging interviewees. Many those stories paint a picture of the lighter side of the use of these tools, which, at the time, were state-of-the-art car washing methods.
I suppose some explanation is in order if one is to fully grasp what I am writing about. Today, conveyors are stable and move many vehicles annually with little failure.
But, moving cars through the car wash was a challenge from the inception of the car wash industry. In the mid-century, some car washes moved cars through using chains wrapped around the bumper of the car.
Chain against chrome... nothing about that sounds good.
Prior to the invention of the conveyor roller in the early 60s, a chain was used, but it was used with giant hooks connected to the conveyor chain that pulled the car along the tunnel length. These chains were heavy, and a busy day might be a couple of thousand cars, and many times these chains were moved manually from one end of the tunnel to the other.
Later, a conveyor on the wall was invented that allowed the chains to be moved along the tunnel wall and return them to the entrance end of the tunnel.
In one interview Barry Graceman tells about a car wash that was still using these hooks when Oldsmobile came out with the front-wheel drive Tornado.
The car was hooked like always, only to see the fender and bumper being pulled down the tunnel… but no car!
Mike Levin told about an owner of legendary reputation which had an extremely angry customer who was livid over supposed car damage and started making racial slurs in the wash. The owner picked up a hook and tossed it through the front windshield and politely asked the client to bill him as he was certain that he was the cause of that damage. According to Levin, the owner never heard from the customer.
As you can guess, the hooks also were the cause of a few employee injuries. Can you imagine hiring millennials to haul hooks and chains all day?
The next long-abolished practice is extinct for a couple of reasons.
In recent times, the industry has used the emerging technologies of the tire brush and tire shiner to achieve this while reducing labor. But in earlier times, with the advent of the fashionable use of wide white wall tires, car wash owners needed an effective way to clean them.
According to Graceman, the answer for this problem more than 60 years ago and prior to OSHA, was to make a pit in the floor on each side of the vehicle, at the end of the conveyor, which allowed a man to sit in the pit about waist deep and scrub the white walls.
This poor chap had to clean and dress those tires while sitting below the wet floor. To make matters worse, many washes required this person to remove the chains from the car as it exited the wash tunnel.
Today only antique cars have those wide white walls, and equipment manufacturers have provided us with equipment to replace the hole in the floor.
It is easy to forget how not too long ago, in this galaxy, car washing was a lot tougher and dangerous than it is today.