Morris Minor Owners Club

STILL HEATERLESS!! SOMEONE OFFERED ME A HEATER - YES PLEASE - IVE BEEN OFFLINE FOR A WHILE DUE TO A DEAD PC....

DOES ANYONE KNOW A GOOD GARAGE WHERE I CAN GET THE FANBELT SORTED AND MAYBE THE HEATER (AGAIN!)...

US CATS DO NOT LIKE THE COLD!

THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP

QUEENOFCATS

It would help if we knew your location - it's not much good if we tell you a good garage 500 miles away!

Colin

ColinP wrote:It would help if we knew your location - it's not much good if we tell you a good garage 500 miles away!

Colin

Good Point, well made!

Im in East Lancashire

What's wrong with the fan belt ? 5 minutes to fit a new one ! And what's wrong with the heater ?

Queenie - if you look in 'your profile' you can add your location so it comes up every time you post. Bmcecosse is correct in saying a fan belt is quick and easy, but if you don't want to get dirty you'll need to find a moggie specialist to get oily for you! Hopefully they'll also work out what's wrong with your heater.

From Minor Matters, How about Leadbetters of Lancashire? 329/331 Preston Road, Clayton-Le-Woods PR6 7PY (nr Chorley). Tel: 01257 275314.

Chris - thanks I got the new fanbelt and heater valve from them - and they also put new bulbs in my lights - very nice people.

If its very easy to fit a fanbelt then I shall roll up my paws and attempt it myself - any ideas of how I accomplish such a task?!

The heater I think has blocked pipes going to it, also the water doesnt run around the car as it should so im worried about overheating.

I'm very new at this Moggie stuff so please bear with me!

queenofcats

Slacken 1 bolt running through an adjustment arm at the front of the dynamo/alternator. Slacken (slightly) 2 bolts holding same to engine. Push dynamo/alternator down, loosening fan belt. Remove old belt, fit new. Pull dyno/alt upwards until there's 1" or so of side to side play in the longest run of the fan belt (even AA men have been known to use a lever between the enngine block and dyno/alt, a helping hand would be useful). Retighten bolts. Job done. Make tea.

bigginger wrote:Slacken 1 bolt running through an adjustment arm at the front of the dynamo/alternator. Slacken (slightly) 2 bolts holding same to engine. Push dynamo/alternator down, loosening fan belt. Remove old belt, fit new. Pull dyno/alt upwards until there's 1" or so of side to side play in the longest run of the fan belt (even AA men have been known to use a lever between the enngine block and dyno/alt, a helping hand would be useful). Retighten bolts. Job done. Make tea.

Thanks Andrew - now everyone knows what im doing this weekend, any tips on breaklights not working? ive changed the bulb.

Ok,
If it's only one brakelight not working, the bulb is suspect. If it's replaced and still not working, we might need to do a bit more investigation...

1) Does the bulb have 2 filaments (and gey bumps on the base)? If so, you will notice that there are two pins on the brass base (side). There pins are offset so that the bulb will only fior correctly one way round. Given the age of Moggie bits, it is possible it insert the bulb half-a-turn out of alignment, and that often causes only one filament to work. Try turning the bulh 180 degrees and re0inserting.

2) Does the other brake light work? If not, do the indicators work (I'm assuming you have a later car with amber indcators)? If not, chack the fuses and fuse box.
If the fuses are ok, and both brake lights not working, the first thing to check is the brake light switch. There are existing "topics" on that, so I'll not repeat that.

It really will help if you can identify the car (year and type) as there are many little differences during the manufactur - not to mentions all the owener mods done later (is there really a standard moggie anywhere?)

Colin

First thing is to check that there's electrickery flowing through the wires when the pedal's pressed. A multimeter's good, but you can use a bulb connected to 2 bits of wire. touch one of the wires/prones to the wire leading to the brake light filament and the other to an earth on the carbody/chassis, have someone press the pedal and see if there's power. If there is then it's the lamp holder part of the circuit that's at fault, if there isn't the fault's further down the wire, so move to the front of the car and check the brake light sender - a little unit at floor level on the offside of the car in the engine bay, just behind the radiator on top of a T piece wirh brake pipes attatched. Touch one wire/probe to each terminal. have pedal pressed. If there's power there, then the fault is between it and the brake light.
The idea is to try and isolate exactly how far the power is getting, so it'd be a good idea to check either side of all the connectors - it's them that are usually at fault. Once you've found where the fault is, you'll need to replace the faulty part or clean up the metal to ensure good electrical contact - it could be inside the rear light unit, it could be an earth connection or it could possibly be the sender unit itself, but, as I say, it's usually a connection.
I could go into more detail, but a) that's probably complicated enough to be going on with and b) I've never owned/worked on a saloon etc, only commercials, so I don't know the ins and outs of saloon lights and where they tend to fail. The basic principle of isolating where the fault is remains the same though...
Good luck - with patience, and ideally a multimeter, it's a lot easier than I've made it sound, and a v.useful thing to be able to do. The Mog is ideal to learn on as the electrics are so simple.

PS posted at the same time as Colin, the principles the same - start at the bulb and work backwards to find the fault!

1" of slack is a bit too much - and new fan belts tend to stretch out anyway in the first few miles. I do it up quite tight - and then it stretches out to a more reasonable 1/2" of movement under finger pressure - not when the engine is running I hasten to add !

1" according to Intereurope manual, half inch according to Haynes. I" according to the BMC workshop manual, both '65 and '68 editions. If I may make so bold, I'd say that both you and Haynes are wrong.
PS Autodata manual says half inch too - still think I'll stick with the BMC version.

Compromise at 3/4".

Sorry, that ^ sounds really shirty, I didn't mean to be - just went back to check my facts and ended up puzzled. No offence meant (Trad. Arr. Andrew)
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