The Joy of Lucas

[mrmoose]

Tom,
Back around 1979-1980 I worked on an Irish built 30 passenger turboprop commuter airliner. The name "Lucas" could be seen on many components.

As I recall, we all became very proficient at changing the starter-generators. If memory serves, they seemed to last only weeks at a time between repairs at the vendor.

Good luck with your wiper system. Its nice of Lucas to spread its joy so far and wide........yeah, right!

Jerry Mahler

[tyang]

Kerry Chesbro made a good suggestion to replace the guts of that Lucas relay with a modern one. The case will look original, but it will be more reliable. Although I'm sending the relay to a specialist to see if it's salvageable, I'm also considering replacing the guts without trying to repair the fine work of Joseph Lucas!

Any thoughts?

Tom

[Deane]

I'd definitely try replacing the guts with new stuff. In particular, new contacts will be much more reliable than filed old ones.

[simonc]

Being based in London means that I can probably get hold of Lucas relays/motors/switches etc. reasonably easily. If you, Tom, or anyone else here needs me to search around please let me know.

Simon
1977 400 in London

[tyang]

Thanks Simon. I'll see what the electrician says about my relay, and go from there.

Tom

[Pete]

... as Lucas designed their components to fail. Well if they didn't they gave that impression, and must have made a fortune on selling those replacement parts ... only for them to fail soon again.

Joy in Lucas? ... there is no joy in Lucas, just a sad joke that was one of the links in a failing British motor industry.

When the Auckland (New Zealand) city council replaced their vehicles with Japanese, they effectively made a whole lot of mechanics redundant ... and what is the most amazing thing to us car enthusiasts when you get into an old Japanese vehicle ... the heater and electrics still work!!!. Amazing !!!!, to those brought up on British contraptions.

Pete
ps. Unfortunately my Alfa seems to demonstrate some sort of Lucas simpathy ...

[cak]

Tom, I'm not sure what relay you're trying to replace, but you almost certainly won't have luck filing the points. Been there, done that.

Someone is making new relays in the rectangular Lucas format, and it's very easy to pull out the guts and put it in the original can. I did this as part of solving 9161's cooling fan problems:

http://www.dimebank.com/misc/ferCooling.txt

[tyang]

Hi Chris,

I replaced the Lucas unit with a more reliable Bosch unit. It's hidden under the fuse panel, and hard to see. I figured replacing it with another NOS Lucas unit may cause future problems.

Tom