Lucas is a four letter word.

The rebuilt Lucas 16ACR alternator started to fail around 2017, so we splashed out and bought a brand new one, with a whopping 35A output.
And now, 4 years later, that one’s begun to fail too, with the warning light flickering like a candle.

I’m a little bit over this. Let’s go see what’s at the junk yard.


Would you look at that! Someone’s carelessly left a high performance lightweight Mini race alternator installed in a Daihatsu Charade. I’ll have that, thanks…

This tiny Denso alternator weighs half what a Lucas alternator weighs, yet puts out 40A. Very nice. Unfortunately it was also very tired and needed an overhaul, and when I priced up the rebuild parts it turned out to be cheaper to just buy a whole new one. So I did, and made up a new adjuster bracket.

The new alternator also makes 60A, and so far seems to work quite well.

If I were doing it again I’d just go for the Minispares competition alternator: the same lightweight alternator, but with all the required brackets for a drop-in replacement, and about the same cost as buying and modifying an alternator yourself.