Morris Minor Owners Club

Hmmm........ yes, you are probably right. I can't see what I'm doing wrong with them but then I wouldn't would I!

It's you, Cam, not the alternators.

In 18 years of car ownership I've used:
5 cars with alternator - 4 of them failed (my Civic is still ok I hope!)
5 cars with dynamo - 1 failed due to a broken brush spring.

So it's presently running at 4:1 in my books, however the failed dynamo gave a red light on the dash and only 1 of the 4 failed alternators gave a warning light and even that could only be seen at night! Therefore I've been left stranded needing recovery more than once due to alternators

I had a spate of alternator failure a few years ago. Was when we had the floods, and I wasn't exactly over-cautious going through deep puddles. What must have happened was the bow wave reached high enough to flood the alternators, and frazzled them. This was of course on fwd cars with lower mounted units than on a Minor.

Had to replace one or two through electric failure not related to driving/ weather combinations, and a couple through bearings. Ought to do my current one some time as the bearing noise ruins the character of the car Still, half a dozen or so failures out of probably 50 or so cars, all but a couple of which cost less than a couple of hundred quid, isn't at all bad

rayofleamington wrote:

It's you, Cam, not the alternators.

In 18 years of car ownership I've used:
5 cars with alternator - 4 of them failed (my Civic is still ok I hope!)
5 cars with dynamo - 1 failed due to a broken brush spring.

Either it's something in the water up in the Midlands, or I'm just very lucky (hard to believe that...) Try buying your cars down south!

Either it's something in the water up in the Midlands, or I'm just very lucky

Well I suspected that the Volvo alternator failed after I drove it through a deep flood, the montego one failed due to corrosion at the connector one of the others was probably faulty before I had bought the car and I don't know why the Porsche one failed but it hardly ever went out in the wet (too dangerous) so I can't blame the weather for that one!

The dynamo stopped working on my Traveller a few years ago and £5 on new brushes (fitted them myself) and its going again- and been fine ever since.

I'll stick to dynamos.

bigginger wrote:Either it's something in the water up in the Midlands, or I'm just very lucky (hard to believe that...) Try buying your cars down south!

Probably the water... Actually my last mog ('63) was bought from North London (FMU registration), but that's staying dynamo powered!

So (at my house) alternators are in the lead. 4 cars with alternators and 3 with dynamos... It will get worse next year when my little sis gets her car, it will be 5 with alternators, but if I get my way (which I usually don't then it will be 4 with dynamos!).

The dynamo on the mog failed, which is why she got an Alternator. That and my drive home which, when I drive to uni (and back when I drove to work) consists, generally, of about 40 minutes of semi-stationary traffic, during which the dynamo could never, ever keep up. I'd have to switch the headlamps and heater off if it was raining and endure being cold and damp (having the window a bit open to aleviate the misting up of the screen) - or charge the battery every night (not an option where I used to live, unless I took it out of the car... which you can imagine I wasn't keen on).

The Yugo, that did 20k with it's alternator, and never failed...
The Golf however, lord did that thing get through alternators. First I tried recon'd ones (couldn't afford the 200+ quid for the new VW part), then I started using ones from scrappies. It had some sort of intermittent electical fault which meant that once a year it'd kill the battery (as in flatten it overnight) - and about once a year it'd kill an alternator. First the charge light'd flicker, then it'd come on, and then, well... yeah.

The Mog got one which lasted about a week or two, then the second one was faulty-on-fitting, the third one... well, it's done 3 years, which in my mind isn't really good enough to warrant me paying for another one of that brand; so I'm going to head down to a Scrappy on my day off and see if I can locate a nice, shiny (or not-shiny) late mini, maestro/montego or metro and filch it's alternator.

I might take the Valeo one apart too, and see if it's regulator's rebuildable. Mind, I've not had a good week, electrically; my main (work) computer has died in spectacular fashion (faulty capacitors have destroyed the mainboard and the powersupply ).

So I've not had much luck with Alternators

Just to add to the mystery of electrickery voodoo. Remember the ignition light that occasionally lit up dimly when trundling along in Fifi? Well since reversing polarity for the benefit of in car entertainment the light no longer comes on! wooooooh...

Pyoor_Kate wrote:I might take the Valeo one apart too, and see if it's regulator's rebuildable.

No, usually they are a solid state part that is not repairable.

KATE...did you ever consider fitting a larger capacity battery?
There is room for a much heavier duty type in the Minor battery box.

How much differnce would that make for the dynamo/alternator. Doesn't that have a maximum number of AMPS on the output?

Or is just some nonsense my collegue told me, as I was thinking of changing to either 68 or 72 Ah batteries

The charging circuit will still operate in the normal manner and
so will the electrical items. It merely means that you would have
a greater reservoir of available power(once the heavier duty battery
was fully charged which would take longer).

It would just tajke longer?

Cheers Willie I'll get one then!

It would just take longer?

Yes.
A battery is just like a big water tank, and the dynamo is the pump that fills it. With a smaller pump, you can fill as big a tank as you like, but it just takes longer. Of course when it's full, you can take more out before it's empty.
Saying that, what's really important is balance between what you are using, and what the dynamo can provide, so that under normal running the dynamo supplies the things you have switched on, plus putting back what you took out to start the car. When you have a lot switched on a dynamo struggles to do this, but makes it up when you don't have lights etc on. A bigger battery doesn't change this balance, but it does help to cope with any imbalance for longer. You still have to run with few things switched on to put the juice back.

Well I got one last year for a Metro as it was £30:00 for a Bosch siver something or other with a 4 year warrantee from cosco and its been fine and turns over a bit faster than normal due to the extra capacity and thats with a dynamo.

Well, she already had a larger-than-standard capacity battery, and it still wasn't enough... :-/

At any rate, the new alternator is fitted. Sadly it's another Valeo, but that was the one in best condition from the alternator pile (a VA104).

Of course, now the starter motor's started randomly not working on me, which is 'frustrating'. I suspect a grotty earth cable, or a grotty other cable to it; which.... well.... means I've got to go clean lots of connectors (or carry a voltmeter with me to locate the dodgy one on one of the occasions when it does it. Only I need a second person in the car also... which is unlikely to happen).

If I lived near you, I'd pop round to give a hand, but I am not quite as near as I'd like.

Wizz the old cr** alternator around to Auto and General people in Exeter and get new diode pack fitted half the price of another alternator. Mechanically alternators don't normally pack up. Fit a new fan belt as they are cheap and cheerful when the old one wears through to the nylon bracing it will not grip the pulleys. Alternators take somthing like four horsepower to drive them if the battery is nearly flat. The Dynamo fitted to the car originally on the other hand takes about one third of a horse power!:lol:

Pyoor_Kate wrote: Only I need a second person in the car also... which is unlikely to happen).

Can you not use the magic button under the bonnet (none of mine have it, but Nikks knows where it is) to 'turn' the starter? You'd need a croc clip on one of the meter wires, mind