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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Car just stops

Evening, I hope I find you all red faced from being out in the sunny, windy and cold weather today! Went out with friends in the Frog, a stag and a midget, but the Midget let us down andy ideas where to start?

The Midget kept cutting out and stopping. No spluttering, no fuss, nothing. It happened first warming on the drive and at a fastish idle; just stopped as if the ignition was turned off. Started reluctantly but settled to a perfect idle quickly. Then driving along it just out out under load or on a trailing throttle or when stationary. The car would jump start while cruising or with the turn of a key would eventually restart.

The car is standard 1275, but with lumination ignition. The petrol was filing the in-line filter (as much as ever) and when the hose was removed appeared to be pumping through fine. The ignition all looked ok with no loose connections obvious and no obvious problems in the dissy.

Anyone else experienced this and know the cure? Or have any ideas about checking out the ignition? It's a friends car, but he is storing it with me so we will be looking at it agian next weekend.

Mark
Mark '59 Frog

Mark, I had the same symptoms on my midget a couple of years ago.

When on the move, the engine would suddenly cut out unexpectedly but could be brought back to life by flicking the starter key a couple of times while still rolling.

I suspected a bad connection somewhere in the low tension side of the ignition, checked the various connections but found nothing untoward.

Since then we've strobe-timed the ignition and found that it was well retarded, and fitted a new set of points. No more problems, but I still think there was a bad connection somewhere.

Usually when the ignition plays up like that, the needle on the rev counter goes haywire.

Dave
Penwithian

Sounds very much like when my coil failed. One moment everything working and the next nowt.

Only that was at 70+ on the Auto-route 2 miles outside calais at 6am :(

Would occassionally work when it cooled.
Dean Smith ('73 RWA)

I had this and it was my distributor cap being slightly cracked/warped so would move about, causing the spinner to miss points and suddenly cut the engine off. Along with this, it had hit points hard and worn them unevenly.
Rich Amos (1 Sprite 1 Midget!)

my 1979 did exactly this to me the day I purchased the car. I wiggled wires at the fusebox and solenoid and it has never done it since. What it was I still don't know.

R

Richard 1979 1500

could even be a dodgy connection on the back of or inside the ignition switch. As Dave said, watch the tacho when it dies to confirm it's LT ignition related.
David Smith

Mine had similar symptoms traced to a loose spade terminal on the rear side of the fuse block. I've seen that on several other fuse blocks since then. I now solder the connections on the rear side of all fuse blocks I work with.
Bill Young

>>> ...no obvious problems in the dissy. <<<

That's the funny bit... the problems aren't always obvious, and a bad rotor or cap can be a show-stopper while still looking perfect.

-:G:-
Gryf Ketcherside

I would also suspect the wire braid in the distributor that connects the points plate to the chassis of the distributor. I am not particularly familiar with the Lumenition product, but if it is like the pertronix it will have two wires, one for power and one for the signal, but no wire for grounding the unit. If the wire braid is missing, broken, or otherwise non-functional, the unit will get its ground through the advance mechanism... not exactly reliable.

It could also be a dying Lumenition unit. Perhaps a good spare distributor installed would narrow things down a bit.
David "firing on all four" Lieb
David Lieb

Thanks guys, but as I suspected it is likely to be a wire or connection or dissy thing! Lots to look into and wiggle. We have most spare bits so we should be able to use a process of ellimination.

I will let you know how it goes...

Mark
Mark '59 Frog

This thread was discussed between 18/01/2009 and 22/01/2009

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