Long drives and exploding parts – The fix
After getting some good advice online, I bought a new ignition coil, and determined the oil in the engine bay was from the coil (whew, one problem to fix, not 2!), not the engine. I installed, but the engine wouldn’t start, and the distributor was smoking. DAMN. i’d wired it up backwards, and fried the Petronix ignition system. order a new part, and hope it comes in.
it didn’t show up in time (and once it did, was the wrong part), bummer. I wanted to go for the Memorial Day drive, and Stewart from the vintagemotoring.net forum volunteered to come over and help me get rolling. We made a few stumbles, but ended up getting the car going by taking out the electronic ignition system and putting in points and a condenser. We set the timing, and I was rolling. Woohoo! Driving monday. I learned a lot, and a debt of gratitude to Stewart for his help.
Long drives and exploding parts – Part 1
Um, well I’m glad I have included tow coverage on my insurance. Would have been an expensive day if I didn’t.The 1st 10 hours confirmed both myself and my wife on the joys of classic car touring, so it was a good day overall.
We left out place early, 6:45 and headed north on some fun roads up to the Nethercut ( a little heavy on large touring cars of the 20s/30s for my taste, but still well worth a visit. ) Really nice time. Kim was enjoying it a lot.
Saw some nice BMW’s on their way to an event at the Rose Bowl.
Stop for breakfast on the way.
(I’ll post some more pics from the museums in another thread. )
Left there and headed to thousand oaks and met up with some friends for lunch. A bit of freeway here, then we took your suggestion for the Norwegian grade section.
The car was running great, but I did notice that with that longer stretch (possibly one of the 5 longest single segments of driving I’ve done) the oil pressure seemed to be reading low. Dropping close to 10 on idle, and only get near 30-35 under load. Before, I’d typically see 40-50 under pressure. But I rarely have driven it more than 5-6 miles, so I just wasn’t sure. I also installed a new gauge this week, to fix the temperature half (which hadn’t worked since I bought the car), so I wasn’t sure if that new gauge might be calibrated differently.
Anyway, after eating lunch, I checked the oil. It looked a little high, which I still don’t understand, as I’d checked it Weds and it was just right below max, and I hadn’t added any. Anyway, the car was running great, and everything looked OK under the hood.
Headed down to Oxnard, via Potrero canyon. That’s a fun route, and a very pretty little canyon. Kim was enjoying herself.
Went to the mullin museum (wow. wow. wow.), finishing up there around 3:30.
Originally our plan was to go to Andria’s Seafood,in Ventura, but no one was hungry, so Kim and I decided to split with our friends and go to Santa Monica, via fun roads in the mountains, and get something to eat there before her dance thing, maybe walk around Malibu or something. My plan was to read car magazines at the book store while she danced, and we’d drive home late.
We headed back up Potrero, that was fun, probably the hardest I’ve pushed my MGA. She did great. Cruising back along Lynn road, looking for Decker Canyon/23 over to the coast. I must have missed that turn, and before long, realized I was getting close back to the 101. I knew I’d way overshot, and was looking for a place to turn around, when POP. I almost thought it sounded like a backfire, but not quite, and then it felt like I was running on 2-3 cylinders, the engine was still running, but not well. Damn, started to look for a parking lot. As I got close, I lost all power. Dead dead. Had Kim jump in the drivers side, and pushed in.
Opened the hood, and it was a mess. Significant oil all over the place. From the pattern, it almost looked like it was coming from somewhere near the dipstick, but it seemed to be seated properly. I’ll have to look again. I didn’t actually check to see what the oil level was.
The more obvious issue was my ignition coil. It was in pieces. It looked like it slipped backwards out of the housing (that’s bolted to the generator). The bulk of it was dangling from the wire that does to the distributor, and that was only being held together to the cap by one of the small wires in there. the other was separated completely. Doh. It felt like it was coated with a bit of oil, and there was oil inside the housing, I almost wonder if it had managed to run like this, outside the housing, for a bit? I’m thinking the oil and the ignition coil are unrelated, but if anyone has reason to believe otherwise, I’d be interested….
I almost wonder if the steep, spirited climb up potrero had caused the ignition coil to slip backwards? Not sure.
Anyway, called Hagerty’s, truck was there in 25 minutes, drove us all the way to Alhambra. Would have been a pricy tow without coverage. Got home, stuck the car in the garage, hopped in the Honda and drove Kim to her dance event. 
All in all, a good day, but i’d love to get my car sorted to where I had more confidence to drive it on trips like this.
“Lot’s of fun to drive, when it’s running”
Temperature Gauge
Since owning my car, the temperature gauge has never worked. This worried me, especially since MGA’s are known to run hot, and summer was fast approaching. I was planning on taking my gauge out and sending it to be rebuilt, but had been putting it off, since it would mean I couldn’t drive my car until I got the rebuilt gauge returned. Since I drive the car once a week or so, I didn’t really want the downtime, so when I saw a rebuilt gauge on the trader section of mgexperience.net, in working condition for less than the cost of a rebuild, I jumped. It showed up, and looked in fine shape, so I set about replacing mine.
Of course, nothing on the MGA is easy, and when I tried to removed the temperature plug end from the engine block, it promptly broke. This meant I had to remove the thermostat, and tap the plug out from that side. From there, it was pretty straightforward to install, though threading the semi-flexible metal tube under the dash, through the firewall, and to the block was a little interesting. Plugged everything in, and presto, working temp gauge!
Since I had the radiator drained, I installed a radiator shroud, to hopefully control the airflow, and help the engine run cool as summer approaches. It’s one of the only plastic parts on my MGA, but it doesn’t look too out of place. Unfortunately, since the gauge didn’t work before, I don’t have a baseline to judge how much of an improvement it makes, but it was relatively simple to fit and doesn’t weigh much, and it certainly makes sense that it would help.
It was a good evening in the garage, and one that left me feeling accomplished, not frustrated…So that was good.
These days, it’s pretty rare that I attempt anything without reading up on the subject on the site http://www.mgaguru.com. He’s got pages and pages, literally hundreds of pages, and it can occasionally be tough to find the information you’re looking for, but odds are it’s there. Seriously an indispensable site, I’ve learned a ton from it. Here’s an article on the cooling system I learned a lot from
Slipping Clutch
I drove the MG today, and it felt weird. Not quite like something I’d ever felt in a car before. Started fine, as normal, and settled into a happy sounding idle, but as I drove, it felt weird. Sort of like my transmission had been replaced with some rubber version. When the rev’s would climb on the engine, the speed would not repond proportionally. Normally, it feels much more immediate. Today I was getting plenty of happy reving noises from the engine, but a subdued, slow response.
-Update- I ended up having the clutch replaced by my mechanic, Malcolm. It wasn’t cheap, but the car works great. The old clutch was crazy worn, and may have been original to the car! Upon driving it with the replaced clutch, it became clear that the clutch had shown some signs of slippage since i’d owned it, and I’d just never recognized it! It’s running great now.
Electrical gremlins and fixes
My first few weeks of ownership were characterized by happy fun driving in daylight, with no issues, and flickering headlamps and dead batteries after dark. I started to feel like Cinderella, rushing home before my coach turned into a pumpkin. I didn’t always make it.
Tracking down the issue was complicated because, well, I’m just learning this stuff, and not only did I have to figure out the issue, but had to learn how to use the tools to figure out the issues. I now own, and know how to use, a 12V test light.
Part of my confusion stemmed from the now clear fact that I had two simultaneous separate issues, but they were linked, causing me to believe I had one issue with 2 symptoms. Let me explain:
The car started and ran wonderfully, without fail, in daylight. I drove it many times, and had a great time. At night, when I turned on the headlamps, they would flicker on and off, frequently with bumps, and the battery would go dead in short order. Based on the behavior, I figured the headlamps had a loose connection, so I started going through the harness, eventually tracking it down a loose ground wire near the front grill. Tightened it, and was excited to have non-flickering headlamps!
I drove the car for around 25 minutes that night, and a few other time in the day, and thought all was cool. Then I drove it again at night. Boom. Dead in a few miles. Wouldn’t take a jump. Nothing. Had it towed home.
Took the battery in to be tested, and it was dead, dead, despite being just a few weeks old. Doh! Got it recharged at the shop, and went about testing it again. It soon became clear it wasn’t charging. Did some tests on the regulator and the generator, with some emailed help from Barney of the MGAguru.com site, I became pretty convinced it was the generator. Many thanks to the fine guys at the MG experience website for their immense help, especially Steve Simmons, who has a personal site at MGnuts.com.
Steve kindly offered to show me how to rebuild a generator, so I drove over to his (impressive) garage. We spent some time looking into rebuilding my generator, before coming to the conclusion that it was simply too worn, and needed replacement. Luckily, we were able to get one locally, and soon had it in and I was on my way.
I made it home, even using the lights, and all seems well. I was able to tell the battery was charging, and it had a very full charge when I got home. Hooray!
I haven’t really had the chance to test things with any long night drives, as Southern California has been under a crazy rain storm for almost a week now, and my car has no top. But Hopefully soon!
