Morris Minor Owners Club

Now I think I've buzzarded Mirium.

On Monday I took her to a friend (30 miles away) for some welding.

While we were welding we didn't disconnect the battery.

I drove home (30miles).

Next day battery was flat as a pancake.

Started the car with jump leads (it started fine).

Ran it for a bit at about 2000 rpm (10 mins maybe)

Stopped it.

Turned key, Ignition and Oil lights came on strong.

When the solenoid went Nothing at all.

Charged it overnight @ 4amps

This morning exactly the same thing.

My process of elimination would say.

WILL start with jumpleads so it can't be the starter motor.

Won't charge at all with either the dynamo or the battery charger.

Logic would dictate that the battery is faulty and not taking charge.

Can anyone come up with any other explaination ?

Did our welding buzzard the battery ? I can't think how it could have done .. but them I'm thick as pigs anyway.

Sounds like a duff battery connection to me. Welding can cause problems with Electronics (ie alternators) but I can't see how it would affect the dynamo.
Do you have a voltmeter? Check the voltage on the battery itself (not the connections) to see if this drops off to nothing. If you haven't got one, try cleaning the terminals anyway.

Looks like the battery as it doesn't charge from an external charger
you should have been able to see if the six separate cells on the
battery were bubbling when it had been on charge for hours?
a non bubbling cell would indicate that it is dead,and although you
can have a dead cell and still get a reduced battery output it can
also completely 'kill' the battery. Assuming that you charged the
battery off of the car it points to the battery.

The moral of this story is ! Never discount a component because it is new !! I guess with batteries it's either going to fail straight away or go on for years!

The supplier replaced the battery FOC and without question.

Willie wrote:Looks like the battery as it doesn't charge from an external charger
you should have been able to see if the six separate cells on the
battery were bubbling when it had been on charge for hours?
a non bubbling cell would indicate that it is dead,and although you
can have a dead cell and still get a reduced battery output it can
also completely 'kill' the battery. Assuming that you charged the
battery off of the car it points to the battery.

Do you have an alternator? If so then check the charging voltage ASAP. A new battery will be easily damaged with a faulty alternator...

rayofleamington wrote:Do you have an alternator? If so then check the charging voltage ASAP. A new battery will be easily damaged with a faulty alternator...

It's a Dynamo, The guy in the Garage (it's one of the sort of "Fast Fit" places) has "Adopted Mirium" and did a check on the the output from the Dynamo and has deemed it OK.