Vintage Minor Register

The shock absorbers on my side valve, exported to Australia as an engined chassis in November 1931, are an hydraulic type with the name DUFOR on the casting. DUFOR appears to have been an automotive parts manufacturer and I'm interested to know more about the Company and about the mechanics of the absorbers themselves. My research of contemporary newspaper advertisments indicates that they were sold as standard on the Singer 8 of the same time as well as on some American cars bodied in this country. Does anybody know whether they were part of the package exported from Cowley in the early 1930s or are they an Australian variation?

More searching and just found part of the answer I think...a company called Duly and Hansford (DUly.hansFORd) in Marrickville NSW made automotive parts and tools at least from the 1930s through to the 1960s....perhaps longer. The name is still registered with ASIC. Is mine the only Australian SV with DUFOR shocks? They've been there for the fifty odd years I've owned the car. Did the chassis arrive here with Armstrong friction shock absorbers and if so, why were they discarded?

Richard,

I've never seen these shocks before, but a few years ago I did have a set of pulley-type Minor kingpins that were in a Dufor box and stamped 'DUFOR'., so I infer from that that Dufor did manufacture parts for Minors.

All,
Dufor were/are? definitely an Aus company who made a wide assortment of spares eg kingpins, brass bushes, rubber bushes, gudgeon pins and myriad other items. My Minor has the same shockers, and so do others I've seen here in Oz, so I would suggest that all locally bodied / assembled cars were fitted with them. They wear out the housings badly where the shaft fits. The action is basically just a vane moving in an arc in an oil-filled housing.