doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Perfect Transport for Your English Sidelock

Please don't ever forget that the British also gave us absolute perfection in the form of the Vincent Black Lightning.

Vincent Black Lightning, 70hp 150mph bike with drum brakes Still I gotta admit they sure were nice looking bikes.



Steve

Great Stuff! Thanks for posting that, Rockdoc Steve.

Compare any of the Japanese "crotch-rockets" of the past decade or so with this or any of the English bikes we've been talking about. Could anyone even TRY? NO way!

Mine was a 1969 GT6+. tinker all week and drive in on Saturday, if you were lucky!!

I used to have a magazine ad for a TR-3 from the late 1950s. It showed 2 hunters, top down, with a dead buck strapped to the luggage rack blazing through the woods. The passenger was holding his cased rifle (trunk was too small).



I had that ad framed in my den. Sadly it was near ground zero when we had a house fire. I'm haven't bought a replacement.
My first car a was TR3, a 1958 ruined racer combined with a 1960 totaled car. I bought them with my paper route money. I put the 2 together and used a 1959 title.
A tid-bit of knowledge for owners of old British cars. The Brits passed a law in the 1950s dictating the color codes to be used in the wiring of cars. All British cars have the same color codes. Once you know that, the wiring gets alot easier.

What is it with British cars and double guns?

Joe

CHARRED BLACK.

I had an MGA with Lucas electrics. It had a great headlamp switch - 3 positions - "Off" "Dim" and "Flicker"

It appears that main problem with classic British built cars was in their electrical systems. Why on earth did the car manufacturers continue to use Lucas electrical components? Maybe some of our British friends here know the answer.
Steve
FWIW to give the devil his due, I always felt that Lucas did build a good magnito for the Matchless and Norton twin cylinder motorcycle engines I became familiar with.

The Secrets of the LUCAS Electrical System Revealed

All electrical components and wiring harnesses depend on proper circuit functioning, which is the transmission of charged ions by retention of the visible specral manifestation known as "smoke". Smoke is the thing that makes electrical circuits work. Don't be fooled by scientists, engineers or mechanics talking about excited electrons, the valance layer of the copper molecule and the like. Smoke is the key to all things electrical.

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 large spanner 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 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 harness springs a leak and lets all the smoke out of the system, nothing works right afterward.

Sometimes you may miss the component releasing the smoke that makes your electrical system function correctly, but if you sniff around you can often find the faulty component by the undeniable and telltale smoke smell. Often this is a better indicator than standard electrical tests performed with a volt-ohm meter.

In conclusion, the basic concept of transmission of electrical energy in the form of smoke provides a clear and logical explanation of the mysteries of Lucas electrical components and why they fail.

I learned a long time ago that once you let the "Factory Smoke" out of any electrical device, it is next to impossible to replenish it.

http://www.obcc.ca/index.html

I had a Morris Minor too, that someone replaced all the wiring in when they "restored" it- with blue wire. Try tracing a circuit under those circumstances.

The thing with classic British machines is they had soul, and character, and were elegant (mostly)- much like the classic British guns we like. They made the perfect conveyance for transporting an English double to the hunting grounds or shooting range. (Plus chicks dug 'em!)