"Uffe Bærentsen" wrote in message
k...
Den 27-07-2011 22:58, Ed Huntress skrev:
"Uffe wrote in message
k...
Den 27-07-2011 22:05, Ed Huntress skrev:
"Uffe wrote in message
k...
Den 27-07-2011 13:47, David Billington skrev:
Karl Townsend wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jul 2011 14:51:45 -0700, Gunner
wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:44:06 -0500, Karl Townsend
wrote:
On Tue, 26 Jul 2011 01:58:14 -0700, Gunner
wrote:
Yayyy!!!!
I swapped this.....
https://picasaweb.google.com/gunnerasch/HardingeTFB
for this
https://picasaweb.google.com/gunnerasch/Trumpet#
Yahooo!!!
Now I only have to wait a few weeks until he can get here with
his
Trumpet..and I can load the Hardinge for him.G
Good on ya!
As I've said before, now you've got two machines with Lucas
wiring.
Your weekends will be full from now on. Voice of experience here.
In
my youth I owned both a Triumph bike and a Triumph car. One of my
best
friends had an MGB. All decent machines EXCEPT for the wiring and
electrical components. Its very hard to diagnose when you got
several
flaky intermittent problems at once and don't have the funds to
just
chuck it all.
Karl
Worst comes to worst..I can simply rewire the entire beasty. Its
much
easier to do than doing the same on a CNC mill..which Ive done a
fair
amount of recently.....
https://picasaweb.google.com/gunnerasch/MoogVisimetrics
I did 9 of these over the last couple months....
Your skills certainly far exceed mine of 30 years ago. But the Lucas
infection is insidious. It infects starters, generators, the horn,
everything. One of my favorites from 30 years ago - hit the bright
lights button on the floor and the lights short out. It left me
going
110+ on a county road at night. Twas exciting.
Karl
He'll almost certainly be needing some replacement wiring harness
smoke
as shown on this page http://www.mez.co.uk/lucas.html
While Im waiting..I pulled the fuel tank on the Royal Enfield last
night..the valves are leaking rather badly..50 yr old felt
seals..and
I
covered them in a very oily solvent..and hopefully they swell
enough
to
seal. Im not sure how to replace the felt...
Gunner
I do envy you, these old machines are a blast to ride. In case you
haven't heard me yet. Lucas SUCKS.
Why is it that that most people from 'across the pond' says that the
stuff
on the other side sucks?
Having worked with electric stuff all my life I must admit that the
approach on either side of the pond is very different.
Different, but both sides have pro's and both sides have con's.
It depends on how old you are. For example, on my '67 MG Midget, which
I
bought new, the left front parking light filled up with salt water
(salted
ice) one night on the Ohio Turnpike and shorted out the light socket.
Instead of blowing its Lucas fuse, it simply caught all of the wiring
under
the dash on fire, filling the cabin with smoke...because it *had* no
fuse
on
that circuit.
A fine piece of electrical engineering.
However, the Lucas battery worked just fine until the temperature
dropped
below 35 deg. F. That was in Michigan, where it rarely got that warm
all
winter. d8-)
And that could not happen with anything other than Lucas?
I've never heard of it. The car was under warranty, so I got a new wiring
harness installed for free. Then I installed my own block of fuses, on
every
circuit. I also replace the parking light cover gasket with some real
gasket
material. I think the original was black cardboard. d8-)
As for the battery, after it let me down twice, I just swapped it for a
big
Sears Diehard. The new battery was about the same size as the engine. One
January morning at Boyne Highlands in Michigan, when it was -15 F., my
car
was the only one in the motel parking lot that started. I crept away as
quietly as I could...
In short, the same fails that we see on all vehicles here no matter if
they are Asian made, US made, European made or wherever the vehicle comes
from.
Uffe, those were just some funny examples. US owners of old Brit sports cars
and motorcycles have Lucas stories coming out their ears.
My MG went through a Lucas ignition coil about every year. Lucas spark plugs
went right into the trash can. Their starter solenoids, where they actually
installed solenoids, tended to burn contacts; Lucas driving lights, the
high-intensity ones, often suddenly drew unexpected amounts of current and
burned out fuses.
A British mechanic I once knew told me that Lucas basically made two grades
of electrical components. One was used on cheaper cars, like the cheap
sports cars, Minis, and so on that they exported to the US, and the better
line was used on up-market cars that were not exported to the US. We didn't
buy many upscale European sedans in the '60s, except for MB's.
I don't know if what he told me was right or not. But the examples of Lucas
electrical failures are too widespread for it to have been chance. You only
had to take a Lucas ignition coil apart, and compare it with a GM/Delco, for
example, to see what was going on.
Thus, a bumper sticker that you saw on some Brit cars in the US at that
time: "Why do the Brits drink warm beer? Because they have Lucas
refrigerators."
I have heard that things are much improved these days. Oh, Lucas wasn't the
only Brit car component that we considered junk in the US. The Tecalemit
Jackson fuel injection system froze up with regularity. And Laycock de
Normanville overdrives (British, not French) tended to leak hydraulic
pressure and pop out of overdrive unexpectedly.
This was at a time when US built electrical and driveline components had
achieved extremely high degrees of reliability. Even Mercedes-Benz, after a
decade of trying to build their own automatic transmission that didn't
break, wound up copying the Buick Turbo-Hydramatic piece-for-piece and
metricizing it. That was around 1962.
So that's what we comparing them with. Lucas did not come out well. But,
then, most cars and components from Europe didn't come out well in
comparisons of durability or reliability. They sure were winners in the
fun-to-drive department, however.
--
Ed Huntress
--
Uffe Bærentsen