Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi All
Today I have been experiencing an intermittent misfire when accelerating but not at any other time, the engine is a 1098 low compression.
Have checked the usual things:
Fuel supply Ok.
Gap on points ok.
Removed plugs they looked fine, nice and clean and correct gap.
Decided to change the complete distributor, thought this may overcome a multitude of sins and if that worked I could tinker with the old one or put it in the bin.
Anyway once removed I put it on its side and noticed that fluid (petrol) was dripping out of the vacuum tube, is this normal?, can’t say I have ever noticed this before but may never have left one at the angle in which it would drain out.

Question 2.-

Is it legal to use the front sidelights on series 2 as indicators?, the car I had stolen that was restored by Josh had this arrangement.
During the day they were indicators and at night, sidelights and indicators, very neat arrangement that worked well but would it get through the MOT?

Any advice welcome.

Thanks

Dennis

Does that vacuum unit work? Suck it and see!! The indicators will be fine - the MOT man just wants to see something flashing. Ok it's white - just argue with him that was the way in the day.......

as far a indicators see here http://www.motuk.co.uk/manual/contents.htm after 1965 needs separate indicators

Sort out the fuel in the vacuum pipe, if it gets to the distributor it can explode when the points spark and destroy the distributor. Been there, seen it ,done it. Fortunately it was not my Minor.

Hi

Unfortunately had to work today, this evening I transferred the coil and distributor ready for the morning, see what it’s like when the engine is hot.
When the coil was removed I noticed it had been rubbing on the oil pipe that runs to the oil filter and had actually pierced the outer casing, I wonder if moisture gets in there if it could affect the windings and cause the misfire due to weak spark.
I see the point about fuel igniting, but why should it be there?, would this happen if the float was stuck, will check that, I can’t smell or see any fuel leaks, thanks for that warning Mike.
I will also check to see if the vacuum advance actually works in the distributor that I have removed.

Quote from the link supplied by kennatt (thanks for that) states:
‘Vehicles first used before 1 September 1965 may have direction indicators incorporated with stop lamps, or combined with side or rear lamps, in which case front indicators may be white and rear indicators red.’
So it would be possible for series 2 to use the existing lights as indicators, I have seen some American cars that have massive red lights as indicators so using the white front sidelights would be fairly tame.

Thanks for your replies.

Dennis

Dennis, using the side lights and rear lights as indicators was the standard solution for series II cars for export and was also the standard solution for other UK cars at the time (eg MGA 1500). So the car is legal in that configuration.

Thats interesting, did they still have the trafficators and no rear indicators?

They used a specail relay that flashes the brakes lights for an indicator. It has about 8 wires screwed into it along with a flasher unit. It was also fitted to the home market cars between about 1961 to 1963. Obviously to fit this to an earlier car you would need to adapt your wiring or fit a later loom.
http://morrisminorspares.co.uk/shop/pro ... 6abb9017f6

On my series 11 I used dual filament bulbs as fited to the brake lights for the front indicators and have added orange lens on the back above the brake lights and if you wire in 2 flasher units you can have the indicators and semaphores all working together.

It was either flashing lights front and rear OR trafficators from the factory. I am not aware of any cars that had both. Of course you can have, just as David says.

Hi, thanks for all the info.
The pickup is running fine now with the other distributor and coil.
I fitted a transparent tube on my vacuum advance to see if was aspirating fuel, is completely dry so I’m mystified as to why the vacuum advance chamber was half full with petrol on the other distributor which once emptied it did appear to work.

On the indicator side I will be fitting some motorcycle indicators on rear bumper and use the front sidelights.

Cheers

For trafficator/indicator wiring diagram http://seriesmm.mmoc.org.uk Technical info

Unless the 'transparent tube' is rigid wall - it will collapse under the vacuum and be doing precisely nothing........

Yes, I was a bit worried about my tube 'collapsing' but it seems fine and the engine working impecably, I will fit the original tube again this weekeng as I'm satisfied that no fuel is being aspirated into the carb.

Thanks