Morris Minor Owners Club

Most suppliers still sell them.

Actually, although they are not as effective as modern larger, closer mounted door mirrors, they DO help and I use mine quite a lot. Much better than not having any at all.

Yep - although mine are 'oblong' shape - they do give an excellent view behind when adjusted correctly.

see even less in a van, but i have gpo arms and mirrors on mine and also an extra mirror on the passenger side.

Hello gents, thanks for your info regarding the wing mirrors.

Bmcecosse, yes, you described exactly what I did when testing for a spark; no.1 lead lying on the head and turn the engine over.
No spark at all.

I think i'm going to have to wait until later in the week and buy a service kit, and go through things one at a time.

Many thanks everyone,

Napper.

Of course, no spark on a plug lead could well be cap, arm, main HT, coil or just that little carbon bush (I once spent many hours trying to get a Mini fired up after quickly setting the points, only to eventually find the dratted bush had fallen out the cap).

You need to be checknig for a spark out the main HT, easiest done IMO by wedgingf a scredriver in the end and resting that so the metal shaft is close to a good earth

A week before I picked up the car, I saw a complete service kit for the Moggy on ebay for £18.00.

Well, if you joint the owners club and check prices with the suppliers that advertise in the magazine, you'll not be getting overcharged for the basic stuff ;-)

Hope you managed to get a spark. Nobody suggested it yet, but the coil is another possible issue (although the low tension side of coil is ok - the HT side may have gone open circuit).
Regarding HT leads - if the lead from coil to dizzy cap failed that would do the same.

I also agree on the 'bad luck' terminology, but avoiding the semantics of luck vs probability, many people have found that new parts for a Minor have an unnacceptably high fail rate

Rotor arms had a bad reputation for a while (I've had that problem myself - serviced the car to improve reliability and later broke down on M6 due to the new rotor arm).
Other very common breakdowns are failed Alternator.
The most common is probably petrol pump. If the pump has new points it will generally be ok, but they can still need to be 'tapped' with a screwdriver handle on occasions to re-start them. From anecdotal advice I've had, new petrol pumps are more likely to pack up than old ones, so my preference would be to put new points in an older pump.

rayofleamington wrote:Nobody suggested it yet, but the coil is another possible issue (although the low tension side of coil is ok - the HT side may have gone open circuit).
Regarding HT leads - if the lead from coil to dizzy cap failed that would do the same.

Packedup decides to put his powers of accidental invisibility to use, but as yet is undecided over master criminality, super hero crime fighting, or lurking in female changing rooms...

However, the "big spark" part of the coil might be flaky I suppose, so you'd get normal LT operation but no spark. Coils aren't exactly pricey if it has failed

Of course, no spark on a plug lead could well be cap, arm, main HT, coil

Packedup decides to put his powers of accidental invisibility to use, but as yet is undecided over master criminality, super hero crime fighting, or lurking in female changing rooms...

sorry matey
I missed the last page of the thread! 10/10 for beating me to it and 10/10 for tyhe advice ;-)

Sounds like the ignition coil.

Sounds like the coil to me too. I had a problem in that the car was going along merrily at 65 - 70, then the engine cut. As the speed dropped to 35 - 40, it picked up again, and so on. I checked everything over methodically, replacing one part at a time, and eventually got to the coil. Changed that and since then, no problem! <quickly touches wood!!!!>
The important thing to remember in any fault diagnosis is to change only ONE thing at a time (speaking from bitter experience here!). Otherwise you won't have a clue what the cause is

The fact that you have a spark when you pull the points apart suggests that
the primary winding of the coil is ok. The usual Ohms reading on the coil are
approx 3.Ohms for the primary and 5.54Kilohms for the secondary,measured
between one of the side contacts and the high tension connection. I second
the advice to only replace one item at a time,otherwise you will have no idea
where the original fault was.

What we in BT/GPO use to call dianostic faulting (that was before I retired)

I think there would have been a G in it !

Coil failure is really very unusual - in all my motoring years it only happened to me once - and that coil had been bumped and the oil then slowly leaked out. It eventually started to misfire very badly - although I did get the car home.
So saying - I do carry a spare coil with me, just in case !!

BMC - Coil failure *used* to be uncommon, but modern coils, some of them, are not filled with oil; they're only partially filled and are expecting to be mounted vertically. The standard mog set up (as I have) has it mounted horizontally which leads to the coil overheating and failing.

Not all modern coils are like that; but some are and I've had I think 2 failures in 4 years (plus one extra after my alternator decided to cook all the electrics, just for a laugh). Because they've all been under warranty it's never been that much of a hastle for me, but the Mog centre was getting a bit fed up. The one I've got is a Bosch one now, which I've had on there about a year and a half, it's black so looks not in the slightest original, but it works

what you mean like this diagnostic

Have you checked the little carbon contact in the ditributor cap? It is spring mounted and makes contact with the rotor arm
Dave

If you're in the AA, call them out if you have home start. They have one of those clever circuit testing gizmos that has red and green lights, and (if I remember correctly!) has a crocodile clip to go on each battery terminal and a proble for testing, lights up red for +ve and green for -ve, or the other way round for +ve earth. Last year the AA man tested the ignition circuit methodically and identified the little wire between the points and coil LT connection as being the problem.

anyone know where these handy testers can be bought from?

Coil is also a possibillity due to poor quality modern spares.

Hmmm - I will hang on to my pile of old coils then! Mine too is horizontal although not in the original place.
Yes - the 'low tension' wire can fail too, and not everywhere has them as spares now.

coils, some of them, are not filled with oil; they're only partially filled and are expecting to be mounted vertically

Give them a shake - if you can hear air, then take out the screw under the HT lead and put more oil in ;-). Ive no idea what is the correct oil but I've used engine oil in the past as it's mineral based and therefore the most likely candidate.
If they have some air in, but no screw, you could sell them on ebay and buy an early one instead..

Cracked it !

It turned out to be a faulty rotor arm.
Hellfrauds had one in stock (£3.00), and she fired up straight away.
Had a great cruise around the Bucks. countryside yesterday evening, no other problems at all.
I will now be joining the owners club and ordering a service kit though, seems it would be unwise not to.

Well, sincere thanks to everyone on here who took the time to help, I am very grateful.
Even though it turned out to be something simple, when you don't know where to start the voices of experience can save a lot of time and money.
Once again, many thanks, I feel like I owe you all a pint.

Napper.