When you own a British car with Lucas...

Zeke · 09-14-2011, 11:33 AM

Por_sha911 · Por_sha911's Garage

aap1966 · aap1966's Garage

Lord Lucas., Prince of Darkness.

dagriff · 09-14-2011, 02:50 PM

Ok, so Lucas was not great. However as a Brit I must point out that anyone with an Italian car back in the day, would be very lucky if they did not have problems with Magneti Marelli.

targa911S · 09-14-2011, 04:30 PM

Lucas is my last name. When I sold spriget/mini racing parts I heard them all. The lights always dim when I walk into a room and I invented the intermittant wiper.

afterburn 549 · 09-14-2011, 04:39 PM

Well....They did have a Neg. Grd System....according to people who I know that for worked RCA - "it is just more proper."
Seems like we folks over here have the wrong idea which way the electrons truly do flow?

id10t · 09-14-2011, 04:55 PM

Know why the Brits drink warm beer? Lucas makes refrigerators too...

fanaudical · fanaudical's Garage

Great pic in the first post.

Joke as told to me by an ex-Lucas engineer:

Q: Do you know why there are no British computer companies?

A: They haven't found a way to make them leak oil yet.

Heel n Toe · 09-14-2011, 05:15 PM

Yeah, there's the negatives insofar as the Lucas electrics, but many of those British cars are some of the dead sexiest cars on the planet.

I assume that in most cases, when one wants either a driver or to convert one to a racer, all that Lucas stuff gets ripped out and upgraded to some kind of setup with present day reliability.

Purists/restorers are the only ones who have to continue to suffer, right?

syncroid · 05:39 PM

Ah..."The Prince of Darkness" I have to laugh out loud every time I hear that said. I have a great text about that on my other computer. Unfortunately that computer is still in the shop getting repaired. Otherwise I would share.

widebody911 · widebody911's Garage

Lucas did make one product that didn't suck...
...a vacuum cleaner.

fastfredracing · 09-14-2011, 05:34 PM

You guys have loaded my gun with some new ammo. The one driver from the local parts store is into British cars, and he is always ragging me about those "overpriced Volkswagens" whenever he comes in and sees a Porsche.

Flieger · Flieger's Garage

Jag circuit diagram:

sammyg2 · 09-14-2011, 05:56 PM

Why don't they have very many skyscrapers in England?

lucas makes their elevators.

targa911S · 06:17 PM

I'm tellin ya'll I have heard them all. To this day when anybody I know buys a British car. I give them a case of Castrol. I have been secretly looking at XJS's. Man they are stupid cheap and most have less than 75K on the clock. It will be a classic some day.

Wilhelm · 09-14-2011, 09:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flieger

Jag circuit diagram:

Good one Flieger !

fred cook · fred cook's Garage

"If Britannia rules the waves, why then won't her cars cross a puddle?"

I actually bought a 1958 MGA coupe once that had quit after driving thru a deep water puddle. It sat in the owners carport for a couple of years not running because a helpful neighbor had unplugged all the wiring under the dash to "fix it" Of course, then he had no idea where the wires went. I bought the car for $225.00, got a wiring diagram and a copy of same. With a friend looking in the engine compartment with me under the dash I would pull on a wire and ask where it went. My buddy would say "to the horn relay" or where ever and I would plug it in. After about 3-4 hours work we drained the gas tank, changed the oil, put in new batteries (two mounted behind the seats) and started it up. Kept it for a couple of years until a buyer came along who just had to have it. So for a nice tidy profit I sent it down the road. Every once in a while the fuel pump would quit and I would have to whack the pump with a small hammer kept in the car just for that purpose. A new pump would have fixed the problem, but where is the fun in that?

GH85Carrera · GH85Carrera's Garage

A shared a few beers and talked to a engineer that worked for the Ethyl corporation back in the days of trying to certify cars for emissions. He said manufacturers would send cars from all over the world for them to certify.

He said the strangest car came from a small British manafacturer that has a small bell-crank in the carb linkage. It would break after just a few hours of operation. Every other manafacturer would have upgraded the bell-crank. This company just sent a entire box of bell-cranks along with the car.

targa911S · 09-15-2011, 05:24 AM

Now that wouldn't have been SU would it. LoL.

sammyg2 · 09-15-2011, 05:50 AM

My worst experience with a british car didn't actually have anything to do with lucas.
A buddy in high school was given the keys to his dad's 12 cylinder E type if we could get it running right.

This was an early 'vert with those POS side draft carbs. strombergs I think.

I spent most of a week getting the carbs to work correctly and get them sync-ed. Had to replace one diaphram and play with the dashpots IIRC but the biggest problem was the linkage.
Man that thing ran like as raped ape when it was dialed in, faster than snot and SMOOTH!
For about an hour.

Back in the garage, they cabs were no longer in sync.
Fooled around for another hour and got em running right,
after that it because a weekend ritual.

I wanted to blame the lucas ignition but eventually I replaced or jury rigged much of the linkage and the problem pretty much went away. Note this car had less than 30k on the odo and his father had problems with it almost from the start and had pretty much given up on it.

I got to the point where I hated that car. It was awesome when it ran right but we couldn't even trust it to drive to the beach. What good is a convertible jag in So Cal if you can't drive it to the beach where the bunnies are?

If I had to do it again it probably wouldn't be near as difficult but I was 18 and figuring it out as I went.