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I have friends who swear that the British habit of drinking warm beer is attributable to the prevalence of Lucas refrigerators on that side of the pond.
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Nah, we had so much Lucas that we avoided electric fridges and bought gas-powered ones.
Owners of this delightful little beauty always carried a front seat passenger carefuly instructed in the exact place to stamp on the front bulkhead to urge the Lucas electric fuel pump on the other side of the bulkhead back into action. Owners of other vehicles, like the Austin 1800, had to pull over, get out, go round the back, and kick the pump, mounted under the rear bumper. Mine was all too easy prey for next door's daughter's motor-cycling boyfriend who would have the pipe off and filch a couple of gallons. |
Quite right about electrons from a circuit actually having appearance of smoke if released! - electronics engineers talk about a 'loud brown smell' - when a circuit is burning up and releasing it's electrons!
The problem with LUCAS* was use of poor quality (i.e. cheap) materials and connectors open to the elements, which corroded in a car/bike environment after only a few years - enough to get the thing out of the showroom and just beyond the guarantee period. Look at a modern Audi or Porsche for example, and the electrical connectors are fully enclosed and sealed against water and dust ingress by rubber seals. Take one of these apart and the connectors are still clean bright and shiny after 10 years! *Not only LUCAS. The Jaguar XJS for example should have been a wonderful car, but it was ruined by the use of cheap poor quality components. |
Meanwhile I think this report confirms what has been said:- For years it has been believed that electric bulbs emitted light. However, recent information from Bell Labs has proven otherwise. Electric bulbs don't emit light; they suck dark. Thus they now call these bulbs dark suckers. The dark sucker theory, according to a spokesman from the Labs, proves the existence of dark, that dark has mass heavier than that of light, and that dark is faster than light. The basis of the dark sucker theory is that electric bulbs suck dark. Take for example the dark suckers in the room where you are. There is less dark right next to them than there is elsewhere. The larger the dark sucker, the greater its capacity to suck dark. Dark suckers in a parking lot have a much greater capacity than the ones in this room. As with all things, dark suckers don't last forever. Once they are full of dark, they can no longer suck. This is proven by the black spot on a full dark sucker. A new candle has a white wick. You will notice that after the first use, the wick turns black, representing all the dark which has been sucked into it. If you hold a pencil next to the wick of an operating candle, the tip will turn black because it got in the path of the dark flowing into the candle. Unfortunately, these primitive dark suckers have a very limited range. There are also portable dark suckers. The bulbs in these can't handle all of the dark by themselves, and must be aided by a dark storage unit. When the dark storage unit is full, it must be either emptied or replaced before the portable dark sucker can operate again. Dark has mass. When dark goes into a dark sucker, friction from this mass generates heat. Thus it is not wise to touch an operating dark sucker. Candles present a special problem, as the dark must travel in the solid wick instead of through glass. This generates a great amount of heat. Thus it can be very dangerous to touch an operating candle. Dark is also heavier than light. If you swim deeper and deeper, you notice it gets darker and darker. When you reach a depth of approximately fifty feet, you are in total darkness. This is because the heavier dark sinks to the bottom of the lake and the ligher light floats to the top. The immense power of dark can be utilized to a man's advantage. We can collect the dark that has settled to the bottom of lakes and push it through turbines, which generates electricity and helps push it to the ocean where it may be safely stored. Prior to turbines, it was much more difficult to get dark from rivers and lakes to the ocean. The Indians recognized this problem and tried to solve it. When on a river in a canoe traveling in the same direction as the flow of dark, they paddled slowly, so as not to stop the flow of dark, but when they traveled against the flow of dark, they paddled quickly so as to help push the dark along its way. Finally, we must prove that dark is faster than light. If you stand in an illuminated room in front of a closed, dark closet, then slowly open the door, you would see the light slowly enter the closet, but since the dark is so fast, you would not be able to see the dark leave the closet. In conclusion, Bell Labs stated that dark suckers make all our lives much easier. So the next time you look at an electric light bulb, remember that it is indeed a dark sucker. |
Originally Posted by Uplinker
(Post 7704818)
The problem with LUCAS* was use of poor quality (i.e. cheap) materials and connectors open to the elements, which corroded in a car/bike environment after only a few years
... Look at a modern Audi or Porsche for example, and the electrical connectors are fully enclosed and sealed against water and dust ingress by rubber seals. *Not only LUCAS. The Jaguar XJS for example should have been a wonderful car, but it was ruined by the use of cheap poor quality components. The "facelifted" XJS of the mid '80s, as with the Rover SD1, had most of the build quality issues sorted out - unfortunately too late to rescue their reputations. |
Love the 'dark' theory - explains a lot! Funny if it turned out to be true, and that's where all the dark matter scientists are looking for actually is!
As one who very foolishly spent a lot of time and effort on a complete restoration of an SD1 Vitesse V8, and got to know all it's systems intimately; they had sadly not sorted out the electrical or any other problems by the 80's - they were slightly better than the 70's offerings, but still built down to a price and still unreliable. According to James May, the XJS was awful not simply because it drank fuel, but because all the components; bushes, connectors etc, were built down to a price rather than up to a standard. So what should have been a premium car with good longevity was a total lemon. Having said that, the Rover 200 series were good, but that's because they were basically Hondas - or at least drew heavily from the Honda ?Accord of the time that they were developed alongside. PS Hydrofluoric acid is indeed very dangerous. If a certain type of seal compound has been subjected to temperatures above I think 450 degs, (i.e burnt in a fire), hydrofluoric acid can be produced. If hydroflouric acid gets onto you, the only cure is amputation. So be very careful. |
Jags are widely known in the us as fast rusters, which does nothing to help the electrical integrity of ground connections.
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I could not hold my tears while reading. And after riding and servicing a BSA Rocket about 40 years ago and a Land Rover about 30 years ago, I have to say: Every word is true!:ok:
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Wtf... Are you guys on about?
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Been there, done that. BSA A65 Star..It was just over a year old and the ticket-price represented a 25% loss to the first owner :eek: As a pimply youth on about £8 a week, I couldn't concieve losing that much, that quickly.
Shortly after purchase, the battery croaked, that didn't matter, 'cos the rectifier (still Selenium , in 1963! ) followed....then the Alternator lost a set of coils, reducing output and necessitating a major spend to replace all3 items. All products of the Prince of Darkness factory. The bike ,of course, vibrated like a SOB the gearbox stripped a load of teeth, necessitating the attentions of one Mr. Bert Saunders of Leigh on sea (Velo and Norton agents) -Anyone remember them? Other than that and the Dualseat-stitching all perishing before it was 3 years old, it was actually quite reliable...but, due to the woefully inadequate 8 inch cotton-reel that served as front-brake, I coveted one of the Rice-Grinders...a honda Dream, IIRC, with an enormous, beautifully -engineered TWIN-LEADING-SHOE front stopper. (it would have bent the A65's forks!) Yes, had a xjs-V12...velvet-smooth , fearsome in the damp or wet,unless the right -foot was restrained and it took about 6 hours just to change the plugs. A lot of the underpinnings were carried-over from the Mk.10 Saloon -a huge, bulbous, wallowy turd of a thing,so wide at the seat-height, you could sleep across them, sideways. Xjs did about 18mpg overall...the Rolls Spirit (6.75L ) averaged 14....again, a car blighted by it's enormously complex electrics which very rarely all work simultaneously. needless to say, touched with the black hand of the Prince. |
737Jock Wtf... Are you guys on about? Ford (Enfo or FoMoCo) Vauxhall..Jaguar. Apart from Vauxhall Using AC-Delco/Delco-remy, and Ford using some Fomoco stuff, Lucas had a monopoly supply of electrics the vast majority of alternators, starters, distributors switches and lights were theirs. design was , by-and- large fairly good. Execution was usually pretty poor. Hence we take the rise out of their slogan "Lucas King of the Road" All gone now, latterly owned by Delphi (who kept the flame flickering with their god-awful injector-pumps)..last I heard, they'd gone as well. Indeed, the "Great" has gone from Great Britain :{ |
Indeed, the "Great" has gone from Great Britain ARM Set To Dominate The Embedded Chips Market ARM (LON:ARM), the British chip maker which provides chips for 95 percent of mobile phones, is taking over another prosperous market, Bloomberg reported on February 19th. Last year the company’s market share of the intelligent systems market reached 60 percent, well ahead of rival Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) and the rest of the competition. |
Originally Posted by Uplinker
(Post 7706867)
Having said that, the Rover 200 series were good, but that's because they were basically Hondas - or at least drew heavily from the Honda ?Accord of the time that they were developed alongside.
Rover 200 400 history The Honda model (HY) was called the Concerto in the UK. :) |
Concerto - that was it. The Rover 200/400's were basically those but with the K series engine, and Macpherson struts.....OK, that's enough now.....:O
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The point I was making was that the R8 200/400 was not just a rebadged Honda Concerto, the car itself was designed from scratch as a collaborative process between Rover and Honda.
The *older* 213/216 was effectively a re-badged and facelifted Honda Ballade though. |
To be honest, Lucas electrics were no worse than many others 40 or 50 years ago.
Having restored and run twin cam 60's and 70's Alfa for many years, I can tell you that Marelli electrics were far worse. The only really properly sorted auto electrics at the time came from .de, as I discovered later on getting a divorce from the expensive mistress and buying a sensible but oh so relable Audi :cool:.. |
Older German cars outside of the "premium" brands (i.e BM and Mercedes) tended to be much simpler electrically if memory serves me correctly, which is sensible in engineering terms - less to go wrong. I have seen more than a few Opels and Audis on the fritz (no pun intended) though, so it's not a hard-and-fast rule.
I do wonder if the British love of complaining has led to an undeserved reputation for the old Prince Of Darkness though. ;) |
Cockney steve - yes remember Bert.. Used to use Sunny at Rayleigh motorcycles - 2nd mortgage job.
Then there was Bert Greeves belting up the artillery road in his inva car. Back to electrics - cant get any worse than French ones - cars or domestics! |
Doze:
One of the great joys of owning an older classic is the simplicity. Even working in electronics, there's nothing easier to fix by the roadside than a set of points or a simple carburetter. I still do most of the maintenance on my vehicles and have only just recently had to buy obd tools to diagnose faults. Not cheap, but a few hours garage time and it's paid for itself. All the emissions control nonsense means electronics must be used, with sensors sticking out everywhere and they aren't industrial quality either. As for the electrics, cars of the 60's through 80's were much simpler, but one main difference between the continentals and uk was in the fusing. There was / is usually a separate fuse even for each headlight filament on the continentals, whereas uk sometimes had a single fuse for all the lights. Quite usefull in the dead of night when the fuse blows and all the lights go out :eek:... |
FUSES !!!! thats wot wires are for !!!!!, without wires you can't let the smoke out !!!!!
There we are, full circle ! Getting back to reality, I have spent the last 2 days re-buiding my BMW motorbike in-fuel tank wiring and plumbing, what a royal PITA !!!!. Give the astronomical price of spares (to pay all of those engineers) they do have some really crap materials in there. I too do long for the days of carbs, petcocks, and simple switches. Have a great weekend all. |
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