Lucas - famous for dependability

[ChrisL]

This gem from the back cover of the 'Cycling Book of Maintenance', 2nd edition published 1951:

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[Frankoid]

Lucas, Prince of Darkness

[Nick Maltby]

It is very sad for me to read the implied derogatory remarks about Lucas and it's products.
Lucas featured large in my early life, not only as a user of its products on several Minis that I owned but even before that. As a child, I was aware that a number of respected family friends worked for the company, mainly at the Kings St. factory. In fact my paternal grandmother worked for Lucas when it made acetylene lamps.

The company was held in very high regard, as a prestigious employer, by the people of Birmingham. If you were offered an apprenticeship with Lucas you were off to a good start, they were perceived as a company that only took la creme de la creme of school leavers.

I first became aware of Lucas's poor reputation when I worked in the States in 1969/70. People who had owned British cars complained about how often Lucas made electrics had let them down.
Sadly Lucas was just an exemplar of the British motor industry in general at that time and we all know how that ended.

Nick

[Dion]

Never had much trouble with genuine Lucas parts, I have always found these to be reliable up to sometime late sixties / early seventies. Then the cheapening of products got in which was something the whole industry suffered from.
It seems plastics and automated production were introduced too fast, without proper testing. Just my observation.

[Michael Richardson]

I agree with Nick,I also grew up in an era when the Lucas boxed product was assumed to be the way forward. and they dominated the market (in the UK)Between the wars,who would want anything to light the way at night other than a pair of P100's up front ?However as always,competition is around the corner,and by the sixties as far as lighting was concerned,we started to fit Marchal headlamps,and the ultimate 'egg-frier' bolted to the front of the Mini,or the Healey 3000 were a pair of Cibies spots. Within the motor trade,the garages continued to stock/sell/fit Lucas products in general servicing. I suppose it was the Jap products that began to nibble away at Lucas domination. I agree that the Yanks have never trusted the Lucas tradename,but they had good products of their own.If you want to see an American electrical product to impress....go no further than a distributor that will accept input from two coils,sent to two rotor arms,who distribute a spark at the right moment to sixteen sparkplugs !All in one unit with the standard bakelite cover. ........Where do you see that ? On a Jensen,thats where !

[Chris_R]

If you want to see an American electrical product to impress....go no further than a distributor that will accept input from two coils,sent to two rotor arms,who distribute a spark at the right moment to sixteen sparkplugs !All in one unit with the standard bakelite cover. ........Where do you see that ? On a Jensen,thats where !

Slightly off topic, but which V8 has that setup?

[Keith]

Slightly off topic, but which V8 has that setup?

Oh come on, Googlemeister, he didn't mention "V".

[Chris_R]

Slightly off topic, but which V8 has that setup?

Oh come on, Googlemeister, he didn't mention "V".

Oh, you mean a straight eight? Interesting, I didn't think of that.

[David Devine]

Hi Chris

Bill's got one

[Michael Richardson]

Chris. Not slightly off topic,but when I finally got that distributor up and running,I heard the noise of the spark jumping within the cap. It reminded me of the old quote that the loudest noise in a certain RR was the tick of the dashboard clock. Now....that is slightly off topic. !

[Chris_R]

Still off topic.
OK, so now I'm with it, it's the Nash straight 8 but looking at some pictures (yes Keith I did use Google to find some) I don't understand two coils and 16 leads for only 8 spark plugs (I don't see 16 spark plugs in any of the pictures). Can someone explain to me please?

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[Keith]

[Julian]

Yep he is riding toward us behind his lucas headlight.

[Michael Richardson]

O.K.Keith. So you clearly see the two coils feeding in to the centre of the cap. Eight leads feed the right hand line of plugs. There is a hole(tunnel) through the block,and the other eight leads pass through this to feed the left hand set. You can also see a welding line,and I have always assumed that the Nash straight 8 was actually two four cyl blocks stitched together,This would have made it easy to tunnel through the join.

[Blast]

O.K.Keith. So you clearly see the two coils feeding in to the centre of the cap. Eight leads feed the right hand line of plugs. There is a hole(tunnel) through the block,and the other eight leads pass through this to feed the left hand set. You can also see a welding line,and I have always assumed that the Nash straight 8 was actually two four cyl blocks stitched together,This would have made it easy to tunnel through the join.

So two plugs per cylinder ? I have two plugs per cylinder on my tiny little Smart roadster... I read that it was to conform to aircraft specs so the engine could be used in light aircraft. If the eight has double plugs, what was the reason ?

Chris Stearn