On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 22:20:15 -0500, tony cooper
wrote:

On Tue, 21 Dec 2010 15:05:31 +1300, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:25:31 -0500, peter
wrote:

That was the real problem. The British motorcycle industry was stuck
with what were basically pre-war designs because they were stuck with
pre-war machine tools and manufacturing methods. To some extent the
continuance of obsolete designs could be blamed on the government of
the time which would not allow new models to be introduced until after
1949.


How do you explain the mechanical issues with the Jag. I know about 10
people who had them and all have had mechanical issues. The car was
great when it ran, but IIRC required frequent servicing.

Of course that was another problem. Then, the Roots group (Humber,
Hillman) couldn't control cylinder bore diameter to better than .010"
so that when choosing pistons, all engines had to be selectively
assembled. Ford had similar problems when machining blocks for
crankshaft bearings. Those, too, had to be selectively assembled and
bearing shells had a 'fit' code which had to match the housing in the
block and the cap (often different). Rover decided to take advantage
of generous tolerances to use Loctite to secure cylinder liners in
place. But they couldn't machine all blocks/liners sufficiently
accurately and liners used to move in the block. On occasion a liner
would drop to the point where the top ring on the piston would snap
out over the top. Things stopped rather suddenly once that happened.

These days I shudder when the British talk of British Craftsmanship.
I'll take Japanese craftmanship any time.

Everyone looks good compared to the reliability of Lucas electrical
components.

You never owned an Italian motorcycle?



Eric Stevens