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MG TD TF 1500 - Head Lights on engine dies

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday, after driving about 10-15 minutes with the headlights on, the lights flickered, dimmed and the engine died. Turned off the lights and the engine fired back up. Turned on the lights and after driving a minute or so the lights flickered again, dimmed, engine died again. Drove the short distance home without lights, engine running fine. Next morning, turned the ignition key on but failed to hear the satisfying click-click. Turned on my back up electric pump, the starter turned the engine over but it wouldn't wouldn't start. Could a short in the panel light dimmer switch cause the intial problem which then created the fuel pump/ ignition situation?
Any thoughts?

I have:
-cleaned all the ground connections 3 months ago after a dim headlights problem.
-replaced the dynamo (from Moss) a month ago but haven't checked it again after the event; belt is very loose
-replaced the voltage regulator (from Moss) 3 months ago


Thanks
E Norrgard

E Norrgard -- Sounds to me like a problem you will have to find using a voltmeter and probably watching it while you drive. Anyway:-

First hook up a quality voltmeter right across the battery. If the battery is near full charge you should have between 12.6 and 12.8 volts after sitting all night.

2. Start the engine, rev to about 2000, the voltage should rise slowly toward 14.5 volts. (slowly because the generator is replacing the energy used by the starter)

3. Connect the voltmeter from the spark coil to the chassis.( connect to the wire not coming from the distributor). This should very close to the voltage measured across the battery.

4. Now go for a short ride (don't get too far from home). When the car stops repeat the above series of measurements (the voltage across the battery will now be higher because the generator has been charging it).

Until we get some more information the causes of this type problem are near infinite. Keep us informed of what you find then we should be able to narrow it down to a few things.

Cheers,

Bob
bobj50

Sounds like you are driving on the battery only and as it uses up its energy you start to lose more and more 'stuff'... until finally it hasn't enough power to run the engine?
gblawson(gordon)

E,

Mabey your belt is too loose??? When you ask it to give more electricity, the belt slips on the generater???

SPW
Steve Wincze

E Norrgard - If your generator from Moss was made in India then this might be of interest; the batch Moss were selling in the UK (and still are) arrived with a fault in that the two rear mounting holes were not aligned, the plates were twisted.
This could only really be seen once the generator was fitted or if you sighted along a rod passed through the two holes. The result of this misalignment was that the pulleys weren't in line and would cause excessive fan belt and bearing wear.
However perhaps more pertinent to you; on the generator I bought not only did it have that fault but the smaller of the two connecting posts became loose. The rivet that fixed it to the casing was too small. This resulted in very poor but intermittent contact which was obvious by the reluctance of the ignition light to go out at anything under 2000rpm.
This may have nothing to do with your problem, but if you've bought an 'Indian' generator then it's worth checking it anyway.

Regards
Mike.
Mike Christie

Steve - "Mabey your belt is too loose??? When you ask it to give more electricity, the belt slips on the generater???"

A generator doesn't produce the reverses torque that an alternator does when a lot of current is drawn, thus is is not necessary (or desirable) to run with a tight fan belt on a car with a generator. On the T series cars a tight fan belt will cause premature wear on the rear bushing of the generator, so the belt should be run quite loose and the belt itself should have a segmented inner surface so that it is quite flexible. I run the fan belt on our TD loose enough that I can rotate the fan with one finger. See the article, Keep Your Belts Loose in the Other Tech Articles on my web site at: http://homepages.donobi.net/sufuelpumps/
David DuBois

Initially I would have suspected the generator wasn't producing any juice and you were running the ignition system off the battery only. But due to the fact that the battery has enough juice to spin the motor I would be looking at the ignition circuit itself. Could be a badly corroded connection that is able to get enough juice through it when you have higher ampredge but not enough current to fire the system when running the head lights. The fact that the fuel pump isn't clicking away sends me straight to the ignition switch.

I'd do a jump across the terminals and see what goes on or at least check the connections at that point and work my way out from there if needed.

LaVerne
LED DOWNEY

I agree with LaVerne. I'd start looking in the area of the ignition/headlamp switch. Wires, connections and maybe the switch assembly itself.
Jim Merz

I had a very similar problem, when I turned the lights on, the engine would quit. I cleaned all the connections on the light switch, but continued to have the problem.
I finally cleaned the connections and reconnected the wiring to the amp/volt meter and knock on wood have not had any nore problems.

Jeff
Jeff McWhirter



Sounds like a BAD ground to me, the main ground the one
to engine and battery

Ellis
Ellis Carlton

This thread was discussed between 02/09/2008 and 05/09/2008

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