Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi folks

A colleague of mine has a boat, powered by a Ford car engine. It is an oldish engine, with proper ignition, i.e. contacts, condenser etc. He has been having problems recently, with the coil overheating. It is mounted horizontally, and is quite new. He has a new condenser also. After about 30 mins, the engine starts running roughly, when the coil is very hot to the touch.

If anyone has any ideas as to what is causing this problem, he'd be more than grateful!

Thanks

Dom

PS he used to run a 1950something split screen saloon!

Moved from G Discussion - a

Is it a 9V (ballast resistor) or 12V coil?

Not sure Alex, will try and find out tomorrow

sounds like new coil doesnt have as much oil in it as the older one. mounting it with the terminals pointing upwards could help.

Picky

And check the primary resistance of the coil - 12 volt should be ~ 3.5 ohms. If it's any less, it's meant for a lower voltage.

Small world!

There was a chap on the XRTWO.COM forums not long back who was using a 1600 kent to power his boat.
He had an ingenious water-exchange system fitted instead of a rad but was having similar troubles to your mate.

I wonder if the problem could be due to poor airflow in the boat's engine compartment?

Is it a freeman?? I think there's an article somewhere on their website about repositioning the coil to improve cooling. They are mounted horizontally, and I've often wondered if cooling would be improved if it was vertical.

Try a new coil. IIRC it's a non ballast coil, I've recently seen exactly those symptoms and it happened to be a duff coil. Found out after changing condensor, plug leads, dizzy cap

ANdrew

Thanks for all that info chaps. Jed is most grateful for your input. Seems there's also a carb proble, so he's going to get the whole thing sorted over winter.
Dom