Lucas Advert

[Triton Thrasher]

[limeyrob]

Japanese - we'll make it so its doesn't break.
Lucas - we'll sell loads of exchange units... 

[Rex]

Nothing wrong with Lucas stuff of the time. I have Lucas mags and dynamo's from the 1930's still working just fine.
People using them 60+ years after their design life, or not maintaining them or even fannying around with them is the problem.
As for the japanese, we'll make it so it doesn't break for a given period of time, then it's non-repairable as there's no spares.

[limeyrob]

I will agree that the older Lucas equipment is the better it is, the 50's stuff is very well made, but later I'm less confident.  The points on my '71 A65 were made of cheese and those steel bullet connectors were a crime.

[RichardL]

I'm not close to sure, but I think that might be a '58 A7. Regardless which model, did they have to use an A7 or A10 in the ad as an extra kick in the nuts? 

Richard L.

[CheeserBeezer]

Lucas must have been complete idiots. Why would you advertise the fact that a bike with their equipment on it has broken down! Could you image the same advert placed by Honda or Nipondenso?! I wonder why the British motor industry went bust?!

[Triton Thrasher]

Lucas must have been complete idiots. Why would you advertise the fact that a bike with their equipment on it has broken down! Could you image the same advert placed by Honda or Nipondenso?! I wonder why the British motor industry went bust?!

It’s ad written with no regard for competition.  The assumption was that drivers/riders were more or less stuck with Lucas products.

[Bsareg]

I hate that 'prince of darkness' tag applied to Lucas. After being screwed down to a price by car and bike manufacturers,  the equipment was the best for the price. I've got dynamos and magnetos that are still working well, far beyond their designed life. All they need is a little maintenance.

[Rex]

You're lucky that no-one has posted those inevitable witty pics of the jar of Lucas smoke, or the "off-flicker-dim" headlight switch!

[groily]

I hate that 'prince of darkness' tag applied to Lucas. After being screwed down to a price by car and bike manufacturers,  the equipment was the best for the price. I've got dynamos and magnetos that are still working well, far beyond their designed life. All they need is a little maintenance.

With you on that Bsareg. And I don't like the witty jar of smoke much either Rex.
With folk like Turner at Trihard and the other factory owners demanding components for silly money I reckon Lucas did pretty well. I also think the quality of some of their work was quite a bit better than some of the replica stuff available today - including most dynamo armatures. I've just replaced one on one of my AMCs, after it slung wires off the commutator after about 12000 miles (as they can do due to poor staking) but at least they're easy to repair. You can rebuild several E3Ls to an acceptable standard with the parts that are available for the price of one Alton alternator (which is hard to fix if it should go wrong), and using LEDs as I now do on my dynamo machines, getting home on a half decent battery isn't a worry.
FWIW, I don't think Miller or Wipac were any better - it was 'then' as opposed to 'now', expectations weren't the same and we were counselled to have magnetos, particularly, "serviced by a Lucas Service Agent every 10,000 miles". Even Bosch had its bad hair days.

Breaking down on more sophisticated moderns is far more troubling - and expensive. Nor is it that rare. I recall the failure of the alternator on my CB900F many years ago at 30K miles, which cost a lot and put the bike out of commission inconveniently while the bits had to be ordered up. More recently, thinking Japanese, my daughter had a Suzi Diversion that was plagued with electrical problems that took a lot of time to diagnose and sort, and a good mate had his Yamaha's alternator die on him when we were in Spain last year.

[chaterlea25]

Hi Andrew,
Love the new Avatar

John

[RogerSB]

Didn't Wassel purchase the right to use the Lucas brand for classic car and motorcycle parts some years ago? As they did with Hepolite and probably other well known brands and I would think Wassel get a lot of parts manufactured in eastern countries - like almost everyone else does these days.
Rog,

Edit: Then we should be grateful that parts for our ancient vintage and classics are available today.

[Worty]

I can source parts far more easily for the A10 than the W650, the former being reasonably priced and the latter fairly horrendous.  Is this to do with the former breaking down more often and the latter being more reliable???   Have to say that there have been no problems on the Kwaka since I bought it.  I may have to replace the rear mudguard at some point, but that'll be a form of 'modification' rather than a genuine part (which are about £200 or so last time I looked) .

I have to say, it is nice to get on a bike and know everything works, rather than hoping that the dynamo is working, the battery is charging, and the whole machine stays together on a long run.

[groily]

I can source parts far more easily for the A10 than the W650

Must be an age thing worty. You can get body parts and repair kits for elderly humans quite easily too!
When, if ever, your Kwakkeroo acquires the venerable status of your A, things might be easier. (Or not, woe, if there aren't any left and there's no demand!)
I was quite pleased to get a reasonable-quality rear chain & sprockets kit for my XJR a few months back for under £100 (special offer admittedly, and I had to use a soft link as it wasn't available endless) and although I haven't needed much for that bike over the 20 years I've had it, there seem to be more bits out there at affordable prices now than when it was 'Yamaha Main Agent or Do Without').
But even if bits become easier, the time it takes to fit them probably won't reduce - nightmares, some of them, like Musky's H-D the other week. Takes me all morning to change the plugs on my Yamaha, and I am dreading having to get the ramp of carbs off to replace the starting-to-crack inlet rubbery things that hold them on. Local mates who work on moderns tell me that the fasteners WILL snap, and the motor may have to come out for repairs  . . . which it needs to anyway some point to enable me to extract/ replace damaged studs on the exhaust side which I have had to bodge. There are a lot of things about maintaining some of these shiny starships that ain't as easy as they should be  . . .

If I think back to the 1970s, when I was running bikes from the '50s as my only daily transport, parts weren't easy at all except from breakers' yards (and often worse condition than what you were trying to replace). Then, when it was decided that they were 'classics' with more than a nominal tenner's worth of value (even if some of them were/are anything but), a market was born. I thank Classic Bike magazine for that as much as anyone, along with the perseverance of people like everyone here and in similar forums and clubs populated by people who never saw fit to abandon the things they'd grown up with, in the headlong to rush to 'modern only'.

[Worty]

Reckon you're right Bill.  Still, with the Kwakeroo, things are relatively straightforward, which is one of the reasons I bought the bike (one to fix, one to ride, sort of thing).  It's a bit of a Triumph copy, with a lot of people (who don't know much about bikes) thinking it is one.  It has the bevel drive to the camshafts, the shims are simplicity itself (move the rocker arms over to get at the shims) and, although the tank has to come off to get to the plugs, it's just pipes off and two 10mm bolts.  Balancing the carbs is simple, once you have a homemade balancer.  Chain adjustment is made easier with the notches on the s/a, the oil filter is super easy accessible, and the front disc is easy to service too.

The battery is a bit of a faff to get too, as are cleaning and oiling the air filters.

Kawasaki stopped making the bike in 2006, meaning only 6-7 years of production.  If I ever put enough miles on it to warrant an engine rebuild, etc, I reckon that'll be the time when it'll either be considered 'at the end of its serviceable life' or 'restorable as a Japanese 'classic'.  One thing is for sure, I won't be the one to rebuild it, so it'll be how valuable others consider it to be.

As for the A10, it'll continue its journey as a fussy, high maintenance classic, but will always be so and will always be restorable to someone, if not me.