Morris Minor Owners Club

hi all,

Having a running engine all sounds ok except the ignition light stays solid red on. Any tips??
Someone told it has to do with oil pressure?......
Thanks for help

Joseph

Hello Joseph,
if the ignition light stays on when the engine runs then there is a charging fault. The oil lights are amber. All should light when the ignition is switched on and extinguish when the engine is started.

Alec

Only one of my amber lights goes on when the ingnition is switched, along with the red light.

Mine came on a while ago after letting the car stand for a while; a quick fast blat up-and-down country roads soon got the dyno cleaned up and the light went out (But that's only if you've got a dirty contact dyno!).

Only one of my amber lights goes on when the ingnition is switched, along with the red light.

that's correct behaviour - without the engine running there's no dynamo output and no oil pressure.
The other oil light (filter blocked warning) only comes on with high pressure to indicate that the filter is blocked and your engine won't be getting any oil! As it needs oil pressure and a blocked filter, most owners have never seen the light come on.
I had a blocked filter once however it was on a 1275 Midget engine and it didn't have the switch on the filter housing so no light came on!! Therefore it did a lot of damage.
If you want to check the additional light and circuit, you could try to take the wire off the filter housing and connect it to earth - I'm not sure it is possible to check the switch easily.

Hello all,
I stand corrected regarding the oil filter warning light, and since converting to spin off filter, my wife's traveller no longer has that connected.

Alec

Hi all,

Needed to move anyway on last sunday . having checked the first answer of the message box I took with me a well loaded battery and that was a good solution as the original battery was not charging anymore (red lamp solid red when engine running), after few hours battery became fully empty and the car stopped ( eletrical pump had no energy to work) I than exchanged the battery and back running having the chance to finish the first rally of 2004 in our club.
Now have enough time to fix the generator. What could be the common fault? Dirty contacts , coolen contacts gone?

Hello Joseph,
stuck and or worn brushes in the dynamo would be where I would look first.

Alec

The Dynamo brushes must be favourite, straightforward to change
and will last for many many thousands of miles( remove dynamo,
undo the two screws in the end plate which pass right through
the unit and the end plate will pull off complete with the brushes).
If the fault turns out to not lie with the brushes then,quite frankly,
it would be easier to buy an exchange recon dynamo than to start
looking for 'dead' segments on the commutator etc. A recon
dynamo is quite cheap. If the brushes are the problem you
should see that the part of the brushes which run on the commutator
are blackened and showing signs of sparking.