Lucas Battery Cable Helmet Connectors

I was looking at ebay tonight and saw some Lucas Helmet Cable connectors listed. I have never used, or even seen these in person and was wondering how they worked. They have a hole in the top that I assume you insert some type of screw into and then tighten the screw into soft lead of the battery terminal. Is that the way they attach? How effective are they compared to the typical cable clamp that is more common today? Just interested.

Yes they are lead and yes they attach with a screw which self taps into the battery post. Some reproduction terminals are bronze which looks kind of similar but is distinctly different to the original ones, with the advantage of being fairly indestructible.

They solder onto the wires which requires a little skill as the lead melts at a higher temp than lead/tin solder but not by a huge amount so it could end up in a blob quite easily with too much heat.

They work ok, I have them on both of my cars. Modern terminals are more user-friendly and probably more reliable for a non-technical owner but they work just fine. I have used the original ones (1957) on my Ford without the screws for the last 15 odd years with no problem. They make an easy disconnect switch because I can give the ground terminal a quarter turn and it comes right off since I squashed it sideways a little and the battery has those modern terminals with two flats on the sides. Battery leads coming off are not Pertronix friendly so I'm reconsidering my approach to securing them.

Andy.

I bought the lead ones from the ebay source. Very nice but I couldn't get the soldering right and I have a lot of experience in soldering, brazing and welding. The temperatures at which the solder melts and the terminals melt are just two close together. If you want the lead terminals I have three in pristine condition and one with a bit of distortion (!) which you can have for half the ebay price (whatever that is) plus shipping.

I wound up buying bronze ones and they soldered beautifully. I then painted them with a flat aluminum paint and they look original.

It's a bit fiddly to tap the lead battery terminals to accept the screw (one of the sets of terminals I bought supplied them). You need to turn the tap maybe 1/4 revolution at a time, clean out the hole, then continue. The last thing you want to do is break off the tap in the terminal.

Thank for the offer Bill, but I'm not planning on converting from what I have had for the past 50 years. I bought my car when it was 3 years old and it had already been converted to regular battery cable ends so I never knew it any other way. I don't know why the original owner would have changed them after 3 years other than they had issues.

Rob Glasgow said:

I don't know why the original owner would have changed them after 3 years other than they had issues.

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I remember they were really efficient at trapping a build-up of that white battery terminal corrosion on the Bugeye I drove to high school in 1967 requiring regular treatment with a water/baking soda mix. Each time you removed the screw in the top of the terminal to get to the corrosion it would take a little of the lead post of the battery with it until eventually, the screw wouldn't really secure the helmet and would affect the battery connection. Other than that, they were great. Suffice it to say I don't run them on either my BJ7 or my Bugeye :nightmare::nightmare:

Contact Roger Moment in Denver for absolutely correct original style helmet connectors. We just put them on my 100M restoration and they worked like a charm. No issues.

Randy

I found some lead Lucas helmet connectors at Carlisle and had the same problem as others - could not get the soldering to work without too much distortion. Does anyone know of a source that has the cabling already soldered to the helmets? I went back to 2 six volts on my 100M so need the extra cabling as well.

I had good luck using solder slugs on copper terminals as in this video. Perhaps they'd help with the problems you guys have been having soldering the lead helmets:

I used those slugs when I tried to make the cables using the lead helmet terminals. I still couldn't get the solder to flow before the terminal started to deform. They did work like a charm when soldering the bronze terminals. Make sure to use the liquid rosin.

Hi Bill, Do you still have those battery helmets available to sell? I'm looking for a good negative helmet with the extra hole for attaching the brown wire, but I'd be interested in buying the pair. Thanks! tmcarthur (tam.613@hotmail.com) 51MGTD, 59 AH Sprite

My negative terminal does not have the extra hole for the brown wire. I don't think 100's had that wire. Let me know what you want to do. Like I said, three of the four terminals are undamaged, the fourth (I don't know whether it's a + or a - as I'm not at home right now) is slightly distorted from my soldering attempts.

how do you get a helmet off when its stuck on the post ( especially without destroying the battery)?