$400 rectifer too much?

[tom203]

With the availability of Goggle, It would be an IQ test not a memory or age test.

What, people would cheat and google it ? I'm shocked, what is this world coming to!

 

[JTGS850GL]

Unfortunately I didn't cheat... Just old enough of an old fart to remember those days.

 

[Guest]

I think Alan Funt is hiding behind a mirror filming all of this.

I remember, didn't his son have a short series a few years ago trying to revive Candid Camera?

 

[posplayr]

Unfortunately I didn't cheat... Just old enough of an old fart to remember those days.

I remember the watching the show as well.

 

[posplayr]

Unfortunately I didn't cheat... Just old enough of an old fart to remember those days.

I may be older, I needed to cheat to remember.

 

[850 Combat]

I loved Candid Camera.

 

[Grimly]

As I recall from my days owning the '76 Bonneville, and my association with other owners - Lucas earned the "Prince Of Darkness" label primarily due to several epic bad designs that they never seemed to get right.

First and foremost was wiring. Long after the rest of the world had converted to plastic insulations, Lucas kept using cotton or fabric insulation that would wick any moisture well up into the harness. Corrosion would be evident several INCHES up on the wires. The moisture would also allow for maddingly intermittent shorts between conductors.

Second was wire size - often the conductor size was marginal at best, mostly undersized.

Third, as you mentioned was switchgear. Never properly sealed or situated to drain, allowing moisture to attack the terminals - which would then wick up into the wiring. Additionally, they often used metals that, when wet, would galvanically react with each other, accelerating the corrosion.

My favorite Brit M/C shirt was the one that showed a Lucas light switch. Three positions. Dim/Flicker/Off

By the late 60s, Lucas had long since abandoned cloth-covered wiring on production cars, so if it was present on motorcycles, it was at the insistence of the motorcycle makers. Probably cheaper to buy in, and by gawd, the reluctance to change by the British motorcycle makers was legendary. Last gasp of a failing industry, and they wondered why nobody bought the heaps of sheeto.
Most Lucas-equipped cars left the factory with functional electrical systems and there were some design flaws in them - bullet connectors open to the elements, inadequately secured looms, badly protected harnesses, etc. All of these eventually contributed some form or other of electrical failure, all of which would have been preventable with attention to detail and design.
What made it worse, was when the vehicles were put into dealers for remedial work and the knuckle-dragging moron who knew nothing about electrickery got to work on it, would just hash, bash, and crimp and cut until something worked. This would lead to more failures.
Lucas and the UK car industry were not alone in this - every major car producing country knocked out the same crap.

In total contrast, the Japanese took a close look at all this crap and from the start decided to body-swerve the failure points. Look at any early to mid 80s Toyota (or even earlier, in the 70s) - lovely secure multi-pin connectors that don't corrode, because they're weather-sealed, fastidiously fastened looms, properly protected harnesses that can't vibrate loose, etc, etc. Indeed, most failures can be attributed to later ham-fisted work done by knuckle-draggers, who know nothing about electrics, and so on. The only downside to the Toyota design is over-complexity and a reliance on wire gauges that are just enough to do the job - I don't like either of those, but they work well enough.
Hardly surprising that people bought them, once it became clear that reliability was top of the heap.