The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
General Category => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: Dizerens5 on January 20, 2010, 10:11:59 AM
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Just for curiosity: the Haynes Motorcycle Electrical Manual gives side-by-side (and not by chance I suspect!) the wiring diagrams for the BMW K100 and the Lucas system fitted to many 60s British bikes including my BSA B44, except that is a single cylinder one, so even simpler. Leaving aside all other aspects like engine performance, it's interesting that when riding on the road, probably the only noticeable difference provided by all that K100 complexity is that you get turn signals. Of course I know about ABS, engine management, fuel injection and the rest - but you would not normally notice those. Interesting.....
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No contest ... I like the simpler one.
Less is more!
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...and one major exception is that most "classic" English bikes with Lucas electrics use a positive ground.
BTW, wasn't Les Ismore one of the pioneers in Time & Motion studies?
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BTW, wasn't Les Ismore one of the pioneers in Time & Motion studies?
Yes but... F Rugal wrote the book.
Lou
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Just to diverge a little bit:
Why do the British drink warm beer?
Their refrigerators are made by Lucas.
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Their refrigerators are made by Lucas.
Now that's not fair
We haven't had refrigerators that long and we kinda got to like warm while we were waiting. [smiley=beer.gif]
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A confetti of points:
- why positive ground (we say earth)? Because years ago it was said that +ve ground reduced corrosion like sulphate at the battery terminals. Was that true? No idea!
- Lucas reputation as Prince of Darkness is not really totally justified, it comes from the very unreliable early 6 volt alternator equipment fitted about 1955 - 1965. Unreliable due to complex wiring, doubtful germanium rectifiers, badly fitted alternator stators, and rotor magnets which got loosened by centrifugal force. In other words, marketed before being fully developed and tested. Can assure you all from experience that the earlier 6-volt dynamo (d.c.) and magneto equipment was pretty reliable and the later 12-volt Zener diode kit also maybe even more so. It's what the Haynes diagram shows. Had lots of it on different bikes and no problems - more than just good luck I guess.
- Warm beer: most English non-lager draft beer is brewed to taste best at room temperature (not warm!). This is getting out of date now as most beer in UK is cooled, tho maybe not as cold as in the US! I think that's correct, but I'm a wine man myself these days.
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A confetti of points:
- Lucas reputation as Prince of Darkness is not really totally justified...
Oh, yeah, right. My younger brother and I shared an E-model Jag coupe in high school. If it was a damp day, the sucker was mondo difficult to start and when it did, was a PITA to drive.
Listen to me complaining about having to drive an XKE ::) Just pitiful, I am.
The old man must have been on the sixties version of crack or something as little bro' and I went thru the Jag, two new Corvette convertibles and a Porsche coupe before we even graduated high school. Dear mom bitched about finding panties in the car!
Life was good. But later, I got married... have practiced that a couple times.
Still remember the Lucas issue. Beautiful automobile. Horrible reliability with a non-synchro first gear.
Monte
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The old man must have been on the sixties version of crack or something as little bro' and I went thru the Jag, two new Corvette convertibles and a Porsche coupe before we even graduated high school. Dear mom bitched about finding panties in the car!
Damb Monte, did you grow up in Highland Park! Two vettes? And a Porsche? And now you drive a 20 year old VW and two 25+ year old bikes~! At least you don't have to keep up with your Mom's panties any longer!! ;D
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Damb Monte, did you grow up in Highland Park! Two vettes? And a Porsche? And now you drive a 20 year old VW and two 25+ year old bikes~! At least you don't have to keep up with your Mom's panties any longer!! ;D
Mike, Mike, Mike... You've obviously read Oedipus a few too many times. ;) Not a Highland Park homeboy. Original Lake Highlands, actually.
And the absolute best part of this true story is that younger brother actually studied in school, played football and did not date. He rarely took the car out but it was little bubba that got T-boned in a wreck whilst driving the Porsche. That evidently sobered up the old man and from then on it was humble vehicles... as in, "Buy your own damn cars!"
And, yes, the old man went through some sort of mid-life crisis involving multiple automobiles. Dear ol' Mum kicked him off his Vespa when he pranged it and went on crutches for awhile. In retaliation, I got a new Vespa Gran Sport!
We had kind of a disfunctional family -before it was trendy- if you haven't guessed by now.
M :)
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- Warm beer: most English non-lager draft beer is brewed to taste best at room temperature (not warm!). This is getting out of date now as most beer in UK is cooled, tho maybe not as cold as in the US! I think that's correct, but I'm a wine man myself these days.
+1 on that thought on several grounds:
I learned about beer temperatures when I lived a couple years in Germany in the 70s. The beer I drank in Germany was probably about 50° Fahrenheit (10° Celsius for the rest of the world). Heavenly! On a trip to the UK during that time, I discovered that English beer was somewhat warmer, and I still liked it! As a general proposition, I think good beer loses a considerable amount of its flavor if chilled to the temperature of most American refrigerators (<40°F/8°C). Stated in pseudo-scientific terms, the optimum drinking temperature of beer is directly related to its quality ;D, with an upper limit of ~60°F/15°C. That's why commercials for certain mass-marketed American beers imply that it tastes best when "ice cold". :P
I love beer, but I've basically switched to wine for medical reasons. (I've always liked wine anyway, and it's better than beer for my weight-control program.) Beer supposedly contains substances called purines, which tend to increase the level of uric acid in the blood. If the uric acid level becomes too great, it can cause gout. (I had a minor case of purple big toe last summer, and I can say that it's not fun.)
Wine has some of the same temperature/taste characteristics as beer. It's often said that Americans drink white wine too cold, and red wine too warm. The reasons: American fridges usually cool to the high-30°F range (ours currently is 38°)—not exactly ""chilled"— and American central-heating system temperatures tend to be higher than those in other parts of the world—thus making "room temperature" something different. (Out of characters)
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I tell my Euro friends that American beverages are not for taste, but are used for thermal transfer. If you're cold, drink the hot brown liquid, and if you're hot, drink the cold yellow liquid. Taste has nothing to do with it, they are both made thin and with little flavor, as anyone who has had real coffee or real beer knows.
As a rule of thumb, beer (and I suspect wine, too) is best served at the temperature it was fermented at. British ales are fermented in the high 50sF, and German lagers, in the low to mid 40s.
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BTW, have you seen the Lucas headlight switch? It's marked DIM, FLICKER and OFF.
I had the distinct displeasure of helping a friend with her '76 Bonneville. Anyone who has gotten comfortable with the organization of a BMW wiring diagram will run in horror after looking at the Bonnie's diagram. There was an original diagram, and every time Triumph changed something, they added it off to the side and just drew lines into the middle of it. There's no orientation about where things are physically located.
And I found that I had to consciously avoid thinking about all those BIG RED WIRES that were BOLTED TO THE FRAME. [smiley=dizzy2.gif]
Anyway, someone had made a real mess of the wiring harness, which I did eventually sort out. Maybe the most annoying thing was that the diagram showed a rather complex headlmp toggle switch, which does the same kinds of redirection that the BMW ignition switch does. But the physical switch didn't do anything like that -- I took it out and used my meter on it and it was a pretty simple double pole three position switch. After staring at the diagram for a while, I realized it was possible to make up a set of wiring connections external to the switch that would direct things in the right way. It took me about 45 minutes and 7 QD spade connectors to make the thing up. I still wonder how it was originally done.
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Lucas light switch positions - "Smoke" "Smolder" "Ignite"
(I know this to be true as I now own a 1964 BSA Star 650 with 6 volt Lucas electrics, no fuse and no voltage regulator of any kind - other than the battery) :o
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Lucas light switch positions - "Smoke" "Smolder" "Ignite"
Bill, that is too funny. I'm gonna try and remember that line. [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
Monte
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If the uric acid level becomes too great, it can cause gout.
i suffer from gout in the ribs
during the night I'll whisper "honey" and my wife will swing her elbow saying 'gout' ;D
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I'll whisper "honey" and my wife will swing her elbow saying 'gout'
A universal affliction, crossing all cultures and ages. ;)
As a rule of thumb, beer (and I suspect wine, too) is best served at the temperature it was fermented at. British ales are fermented in the high 50sF, and German lagers, in the low to mid 40s.
Good point. A corollary possibility is that cave temperatures (and cellar temperatures, if deep enough) are uniform (about 54°F/12°C, I seem to recall) and they're dark. And guess where beer and wines were fermented, after the initial activation of the yeast? This guess and your theory are not mutually-exclusive, and might both be valid.
I'm fortunate in having a windowless storage room (with shelves) below ground level that, with its heat turned off, maintains temperatures ranging from 59°F/15°C in winter to 63°F/17.2°C in summer. So, for red wines at least, it's in the range for red wine, according to the "optimum drinking temperature" charts I've seen (54°-64°, depending on the grape variety). For temperature-obsessed red wine drinkers, 5-10 seconds in the m-wave or 5 min. or so in the fridge brings a glass of red up/down to specification. The specification for still white wines ranges from 43° to 50°, so putting a glass (full or empty) in the fridge for a few minutes will correct the drinking temperature. (Sparkling wines are listed with lower temperatures, presumably because of the carbonation.)
For me, it's not a problem. My three-prong taste test is whether wine or beer (1) tastes yucky, (2) burns my tongue, or (3) freezes same. If it does none of the three, it passes!
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Lager.... cooled ok frozen no way and why has guiness gone super chilled ??? ill stick to Murphys ta
Real Ale look no futher.Blind Jacks
Lou [smiley=beerchug.gif]
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After brewing my own beer since 1984, I have acquired a liking to ales, over lagers .
Ale tastes better at a higher temperature than lagers, around 60-65 F. (16-18 C.) for me .
It loses taste, if you get it too cold .
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I have done a bit of homebrewing in the past...
http://tinyurl.com/yh5jqyn
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Possibly the best way to serve that beer.
(https://bmwr65.org/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi212.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fcc60%2Flarstorders%2Fzapf.jpg&hash=4e3ddc3180aab64d818eebc50968bff9904aa087)
;D ;D ;D ;D
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Lars, How long have you been waiting to post that photo? Way cool [smiley=beer.gif]
Monte
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Woo Hoo! A BEER thread!!! [smiley=beer.gif] [smiley=beer.gif] [smiley=beer.gif] [smiley=beerchug.gif]