Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Roverron]

I read recently that electric things have smoke in them. Once the smoke gets out they stop working.
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To Hell with ambition, it drives a man mad, I can scarcely wake up to be fed.

[Brian M]

Have you inadvertently let the smoke out of the wires on your classic British car? This, then, is the solution to your problem!





Here is presented for your perusal one Lucas Replacement Wiring Harness Smoke kit, P/N 530433, along with the very rare Churchill Tool 18G548BS adapter tube and metering valve. These kits were supplied surreptitiously to Lucas factory technicians as a trouble-shooting and repair aid for the rectification of chronic electrical problems on a plethora of British cars. The smoke is metered, through the fuse box, into the circuit which has released it's original smoke until the leak is located and repaired. The affected circuit is then rectified and the replacement smoke re-introduced. An advantage over the cheap repro smoke kits currently available is the exceptionally rare Churchill metering valve and fuse box adapter. It enables the intrepid and highly skilled British Car Technician to meter the precise amount of genuine Lucas smoke required by the circuit.

Unlike the cheap, far-eastern replacement DIYsmoke offered by the "usual suppliers", this kit includes a filter to ensure that all the smoke is of consistent size, It has been our experience in our shop that the reproduction Taiwanese smoke is often "lumpy", which will cause excessive resistance in our finely-engineered British harnesses and components. This is often the cause of failure in the repro electrical parts currently available, causing much consternation and misplaced cursing of the big three suppliers.

These kits have long been the secret weapon of the "Ultimate Authorities" in the trade, and this may be the last one available. Be forewarned, though, that it is not applicable to any British vehicle built after the discontinuing of bullet connectors, so you Range Rover types are still on your own...

This Genuine Factory Authorized kit contains enough smoke to recharge the entire window circuit on a 420 Jaguar, and my dear friend and advisor George Wolf of British Auto Specialty assures me that he can replace ALL the smoke in a W&F Barrett All-Weather Invalid Car(147 CC) with enough left over to test a whole box of Wind-Tone horns for escaped smoke. How much more of an endorsement do you need?

More, you say? Well, I once let the smoke out of the overdrive wiring on my friend Roger Hankey's TR3B, and was able to drive over 200 miles home from The Roadster Factory Summer Party by carefully introducing smoke into the failed circuit WITHOUT even properly repairing the leak. Another friend, Richard Stephenson, was able to repair the cooling fan circuit of his Series 1 E-type by merely replacing a fuse and injecting a small quantity of smoke back into the wires. So there!
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Brian
1970 Volvo Amazon and 1978 Safari 15-4 Caravan
Classic Safari Forum: www.classicsafaris.co.uk

[ukdave2002]

Very good

[Dirty Habit]

Many Americans think Lucas parts are rubbish. I bet they will be impressed with that smoke kit
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1964 International Harvester

[Penman]

Hi
I do hope that title isn't a misspelling.

EleCritical seems just right.
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Bristols should always come in pairs.

Any 2 from:-
Straight 6
V8 V10

[Finch661]

when i was doing my electronic engineering degree, my friends discovered (after blowing several components) that all circuit components contain "blue smoke". towards the end of my degree, we never had to say "oh i have knackered this circuit".... we just said "ah blue smoke"

oh by the way, that is not a technical term i dont think the monkeys in halfords or kwikfit will know that term

[62rebel]

had you not heard? the Churchill valve was found to be faulty (pointed to the Right) and was superceded by various units until now, the proper replacement is the Brown valve; which has (wait for it)



no direction




sorry lads i just HAD to do it.

[emmerson]

Brian, you were a few days to early with that post! Should it not have been April1?

[Nic Jarman]

I have been reliably informed that the Brown valve is only a short term replacement that is much to expensive and doesn't work anyway.

[PAUL BEAUMONT]

Tell us more! I suppose there is always the Harman-Blears valve, or when all else fails there is the Last Straw valve!!!
Paul

[captain bobo]

Forget all the nonsense about magnetic fields and the flow of electrons along conductors, for it is just a lot of eyewash! It’s a myth put about by car electricians to support their lavish lifestyle at our expense!

The reality is smoke! When you think about it, it all becomes startlingly obvious; smoke makes all electrical things function. If the smoke escapes, the component stops working. For example, the last time you had a grovel under your car to replace the starter motor, didn’t it start smoking before it stopped working? Of course!

The wiring loom in your car carries smoke from one component to another, pumped around the system by the dynamo, and when a wire springs a leak it lets all the smoke out and everything stops. The starter motor needs a lot of smoke to work properly, so it has a very thick wire going to it. The battery stores large quantities of smoke dissolved in “battery acid”, which is why they were called accumulators (until it became apparent that we home mechanics would twig to the secret). Naturally, if you try to store too much smoke in your battery it will escape through those holes in the top – this is why those new fangled batteries with sealed tops explode when they get too much smoke in them.

But, with regard to Joseph Lucas and his sullied reputation (Prince of Darkness), why is he so maligned? Why are Lucas components more likely to leak smoke than Bosch or Marelli? Because Lucas is British, and all things British leak. British engines leak oil, British sports cars leak rain, British hydrolastic units leak fluid, and British electrical components leak smoke!!!

By the way, Lucas headlamps have 3 positions: Off, Dim and Flicker.

Best wishes, Dave B
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1937 Daimler 15 Mulliner Sports Saloon & 1969 Daimler V8 250 Saloon

[MVPeters]

What follows has been around for years - there are several other variants too. But it's worth re-reading.

A collection of Prince of Darkness jokes.
(Paul Mossberg, New Jersey Replicar Club, February 2001)
The Lucas motto: "Get home before dark."
Lucas denies having invented darkness. But they still claim "sudden, unexpected darkness"
Lucas - inventor of the first intermittent wiper.
Lucas - inventor of the self-dimming headlamp.
The three-position Lucas switch - DIM, FLICKER and OFF. The other three switch settings - SMOKE, SMOLDER and IGNITE.
The original anti-theft devices - Lucas Electric products.
"I've had a Lucas pacemaker for years and have never experienced any prob...
If Lucas made guns, wars would not start either.
Did you hear about the Lucas powered torpedo? It sank.
It's not true that Lucas, in 1947, tried to get Parliament to repeal Ohm's Law. They withdrew their efforts when they met too much resistance.
Did you hear the one about the guy that peeked into a Land Rover and asked the owner "How can you tell one switch from another at night, since they all look the same?" "He replied, it doesn't matter which one you use, nothing happens!"
Back in the '70s Lucas decided to diversify its product line and began manufacturing vacuum cleaners. It was the only product they offered which didn't suck.
Quality Assurance phoned and advised the Engineering guy that they had trouble with his design shorting out. So he made the wires longer.
Why do the English drink warm beer? Lucas made the refrigerators, too.
Alexander Graham Bell invented the Telephone.
Thomas Edison invented the Light Bulb.
Joseph Lucas invented the Short Circuit.
Recommended procedure before taking on a repair of Lucas equipment: check the position of the stars, kill a chicken and walk three times sunwise around your car chanting: "Oh mighty Prince of Darkness protect your unworthy servant."
Lucas systems actually use AC current; it just has a random frequency.


A Treatise on the Importance of Smoke
by Joseph Lucas
Positive ground depends on proper circuit functioning, which is the transmission of negative ions by retention of the visible spectral manifestation known as "smoke". Smoke is the thing that makes electrical circuits work. We know this to be true because every time one lets the smoke out of an electrical circuit, it stops working. This can be verified repeatedly through empirical testing. For example, if one places a copper bar across the terminals of a battery, prodigious quantities of smoke are liberated and the battery shortly ceases to function. In addition, if one observes smoke escaping from an electrical component such as a Lucas voltage regulator, it will also be observed that the component no longer functions. The logic is elementary and inescapable!

The function of the wiring harness is to conduct the smoke from one device to another. When the wiring springs a leak and lets all the smoke out of the system, nothing works afterward.

Starter motors were considered unsuitable for British motorcycles for some time largely because they consumed large quantities of smoke, requiring very unsightly large wires.

It has been reported that Lucas electrical components are possibly more prone to electrical leakage than their Bosch, Japanese or American counterparts. Experts point out that this is because Lucas is British, and all things British leak. British engines leak oil, British shock absorbers, hydraulic forks and disk brake systems leak fluid, British tires leak air and British Intelligence leaks national defence secrets. Therefore, it follows that British electrical systems must leak smoke. Once again, the logic is clear and inescapable.

In conclusion, the basic concept of transmission of electrical energy in the form of smoke provides a logical explanation of the mysteries of electrical components - especially British units manufactured by Joseph Lucas, Ltd.

"A gentleman does not motor about after dark."

Joseph Lucas (1842 - 1903)
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Mike - MVPeters at comcast.net
2002 MINI Cooper 'S'

[Jim.Walker]

[Bitumen Boy]

I've had the good and bad of Lucas electrics. My '64 Herald, in the last 8 years or so I've had it, has only really given trouble with a knackered starter (think the insulation was at fault somewhere) but in fairness that had probably been "rebuilt" at some stage. Apart from that, the only problems so far have been worn out brushes in the wiper motor and partly stuck dynamo brushes, both of which I can excuse after 40+ years! On the other hand, I had an '87 Mini when I was 18 - bear in mind it wasn't even 15 years old at this point - which wore me down with one niggling electrical fault after another. It wasn't so much the main components themselves, but the lousy quality wiring that could and did develop intermittent shorts pretty much anywhere, randomly blowing fuses and in particular the numerous Lucar terminals which would fail on a regular basis, causing many nuisance value breakdowns in, of course, the most inconvenient locations possible... It was so bad that I habitually carried replacement terminals, crimp tool and so on everywhere I went, and at one point seriously considered a full rewire in an attempt to make the damn thing reliable - remember, this car wasn't even 15 years old!

My theory is that the quality of Lucas bits closely mirrored the fortunes of the British car industry in general. When we made cars that were reasonably solid (within their limits) often cute/sexy and almost never hideously ugly - cars that people could get enthusiastic about for varying reasons - Lucas electrics were basically sound. When we made mainly lousy cars, Lucas electrics were lousy too...

Mind you, even at their worst, Lucas electrics are, given the will to live, fixable pretty much whatever goes wrong, short of a catastrophic fire - I don't say it's ever much fun, but it is possible and you don't need a load of specialist tackle either. Just try putting electrical gremlins right on a modern car... you might as well scrap it, because you sure as hell won't be able to fix it!

[Jim.Walker]

Aah! Lucar terminals.
SO convenient!
A major part of removing an engine when I was an apprentice was disconnecting the wiring from everything electrical using a tiny BA spanner. Which seemed to take forever.
If any wire end was damaged it needed a new "banjo" or whatever soldering on. Trying to crimp one got a boot up the backside! But connections rarely failed.
Then along came crimped Lucars! Connection failures after a year or two became commonplace. Caused by dirt or looseness, arcing, or even falling off the terminal or the end of the wire.
It is called PROGRESS!
Well........I suppose it is from the car builders point of view.
Jim.
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Quote from my late Dad:- You only need a woman and a car and you have all the problems you
are ever likely to want". Computers had not been invented then!