2 odd items?

Dave,

Your recollection seemed familiar ... and a few moments 'Googling' found this:

**LINK**

http://www.designchambers.com/wolfhound/wolfhoundRACHP.htm

MichaelG.

Well I never Michael. The bit that matters is the assumption they made about piston speed. My version of the story could easily have spawned from that and gathered colour as it went. I've a vague idea I saw it in a Readers Digest: waiting rooms used to be full of them.

Thanks,

Dave

You'all were also graced with Mr Lucas. We developed other problems on Our own.

Ah the Prince of Darkness, he who invented 'magic smoke'...

All electrical and electronic devices contain smoke, if the smoke comes out they stop working.

Mike

Ha, heaters, we had a Trojan van (with a Coffman starter) but no heate. We could remove the engine cover in the cab by simply undoing 2 clips. This allowed some meagre engine warmth into the cab but left nowhere to stand a cup or flask.
By contrast the outside front engine cover had a dozen or more large headed screws.
As 'The Motorist' said of the early Morris Minor "... the passenger compartment is well insulated from engine heat..."

Joe Lucas had some good ideas, but ...

One good idea was to buy up all their competing firms (Rotax, CAV, etc) as they got into difficulties during the depression in the thirties. This gave Lucas the use of a range of clever patents and clever engineers, so what could go wrong? Well, they used their new bounty to emphasise the cheapness of the product rather than any 'good' properties, and they were encouraged in this by the car makers themselves.

There came a point when the 'guarantee' - according to service engineers - was 500 yards or 5pm, whichever is the sooner.

Happy days

Tim