From: bakc@giraffe.ru.ac.za (MR KR COMAN)
Newsgroups: rec.autos.tech
Subject: Re: (Lucas electrics) Re: '57 TR3 no engine go jap?
Date: 20 Aug 92 13:51:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: giraffe.bakc.101.714318711
Organization: Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

In article <thos.714179622@suite.sw.oz.au> thos@suite.sw.oz.au (Thomas Cohen) writes:
>From: thos@suite.sw.oz.au (Thomas Cohen)
>Subject: (Lucas electrics) Re: '57 TR3 no engine go jap?
>Date: 18 Aug 92 23:13:42 GMT

>In <bakc.97.714037347@giraffe.ru.ac.za> bakc@giraffe.ru.ac.za (MR KR COMAN) writes:

>>1.
>>Switchgear -- indictors, fuel pump switches, headlamps, dipswitchs, reverse 
>>lights.

>Nope. All Vile Calumny. They work fine, as long as they're not fiddled 
>with. And they can be repaired without replacing as a unit.
>The 30 year old wiring in my 997 Cooper is just fine thanks. 

Weeeell OK, perhaps....as I recall the 'lectrics on Mini's are pretty 
straight-forward, so the overall probability of problems arising might be 
proportionately lower.   My *direct* experiences have been with Lucas 
systems on Jaguars, Rovers, Triumph sedans, Austin/Morris 1800's ('
Landcrabs') and Austin 11/55's.   Some memorable experiences: fuel switch 
system on XJ-6 self-destructed after 6 months -- stranded my Dad and I on a 
piece of road thu a semi-desert once;  steering column indicator assembly on 
11/55 caught alight;  dipswitch on Rover, drop from high to low beam on 
"dark/stormy night" -- zappo, headlights go out completely.   None of these 
had been fiddled with BTW.

>>2.
>>Fuel injection system: a la Triumph 2500 PI

>The Lucas fuel injection is again a victim of bad press. If it can
>run for 24 hours at Le Mans, it should do for a family car. The problem
>(according to a recent 'Thoroughbred & Classic Cars' was that mechanics
>just didn't want to learn how to service them, and they are fine once
>set up right. Plus, they're a pretty neat design.

"Ask the man who owned one!!!"    Maybe there's a major difference between 
a well calibrated system supported by a factory pit crew and one on an 
average family car maintained by the average workshop droid?
 
>>3.
>>Heater/ventilation fan motors
>I think your problem is you expect everything to work as well as an
>American car, where you have twice as much room for any given component.

Could be, 'cept the only "US-type" car I've ever owned was an old '64 
Chrysler Valiant (the Aussi one):  bought, used and sold as a banger.  Fine 
car, but golly it didn't even have a heater/ventilator! -- just two air 
flaps down in the footwell.  

>>4.
>>Ignition distributors: points, vacuum advance mech. -- don'tcha also just 
>>love the way these little items attract the least amount of damp/moisture 
>>and go on strike??

>Dunno. It's a flaky thing. In my Clubman GT I have driven through water 
>that was over the height of the exhaust (I could hear it bubbling out
>back) and the water was coming in the drainholes in the floor - and 
>there was no problem.   ^^^^In other cases I have driven through light 
drizzle >for 10 minutes and the car went on to 3 cylinders.^^^^

"The prosecution rests, M'Lud."

>>5.
>>The DREADED SU FUEL PUMP!!!

>Well, yes. Enuff said. Although if it is in good condition it will work
>quite happily.

>>6.
>>The INFAMOUS LUCAS IGNITION COIL!!!!

>Never used one (to my knowledge - unless those all-aluminium coloured
>ones are Lucas - never had trouble with them anyway) - all my minis
>use Bosch GT40s.

Sensible choice.  BTW, knew some blokes who worked for Leyland's assembly 
plantdown in Cape Town back in the early-mid 1970's.  Completed vehicles 
used to be driven to dealers in convoys.  Told me that on one memorable 
occasion out of a convoy of 20 *new* vehicles going up to Johannesburg (+\- 
700 miles), 17 had conked out with electrical problems traced to duff coils 
and regulators.  Got so bad that every convoy was accompanied by a service 
truck for a time.

OK, (taking off fire-proof suit) to my mind the problems with Lucas (and 
the customer Leyland) really all belong to the period late-1960's thru the 
1970's.   The real blame rests with Leyland whose bloody useless approach to 
the business of competing in a market *that at one time they owned* lead to 
the term "Quality" (as in 'fitness for use') being tossed in the gurgler 
and flushed.   Leyland would go to Lucas (and other suppliers) and say "We 
want a production run of X and the price we will pay is Y." -- where Y is 
marginally profitable to Lucas.  Naturally, Lucas (and other Leyland 
suppliers besides) had no incentive to invest in ways of upgrading quality 
and productivity  -- any old shit, as long as it was shipped to Leyland 
would do.  Leyland's attitude was "Well if anything goes wrong, or its not 
built right, it'll either get fixed under warrenty or the dealer will sort 
it out."  Known problems were thus "fixed" on individual cars instead of 
being eliminated at the design/engineering/manufacturing end of the 
business.   It was the old "Quality costs money, ship the iron out the 
factory" syndrome, and Lucas as a supplier had to go along.
    My Dad spent 30 years in a firm that had Leyland as a customer during 
the period mentioned above,  and I had close personal friends who worked at 
Leyland at the time (I worked for Ford) -- Honestly it would make any 
car-lover cry with rage at the willful lack of direction, incompetence, 
apathy and complacency demonstrated by a car firm that was once an 
international leader.

P.S.  I currently own a 1955 Rover 90, 1958 Land-Rover, and 1959 Rover 3 
litre -- their Lucas electrics (SU fuel pumps excluded) are sincerely bloody 
marvellous: what they should have been all along!!

Cheers,
Keith Coman
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