Electrical Gremlins!
Ok, let's cue up the usual British electrical system jokes:
"Why do the British drink warm beer? Because Lucas makes their refrigerators!"
"Who is the Prince of Darkness? Lucas!"
And finally, the famous bumper sticker: "The parts falling off of this car, are of genuine British manufacture!"
But I have carried this nonsense to an extreme! I mixed a 20 year old Mazda RX8 electrical system with a 60 year old Lucas system! God bless me! No wonder I experience some issues! And I allowed thoughts of this complexity to lead me down a path of wasted time and money, as we will see.
This winter's issues (there is always a winter issue during the nearly 10 year shakedown process!) was a mysterious dead battery. I drove BB to work midweek and then jumped in for a last trip of the season to my Mom's house on Sunday, turned the key and nothing. No fuel pump noise, no voltage increase, no cranking. Hmmm. So I jumped into my modern car and thought I'd deal with that later.
Well, I didn't understand my AGM (Absorbent Glass Matt) battery well enough. Apparently, you don't let them sit at low charge, especially in the cold. Which is exactly what I did for 3 months. When I applied the 50 year old battery charger I inherited from my Dad, it did a lot of humming but the needle stayed on 5A and no charging occurred.
At this point I hit the internet forums, which, as we know, are the infallible source of truth! I read about various dangerous sounding procedures to wake up a dead AGM but didn't like the risk factor. Finally, I found a NOCO charger with an AGM repair mode. This proved to be successful, or so I thought. In any case, my battery tester showed 100% State of Health and 100% State of Charge. So I proceeded to bolt the battery back in using red Loctite (!). Hope I can trust the meter!
In the meantime, I find the fuel pump fuse is partially melted but still conducting electricity! This is contrary to the function of a fuse!
I had a batch of these bad fuses and thought I had rooted them out, but apparently I missed one. But what was the order of events? Fuse partially blown shouldn't drain the battery. Dead battery shouldn't blow a fuse. Hmmm.
So, I reconnect everything and start her up. I do a quick test drive (not yet a victory drive!) and return to base. I had some missing on the way back, as if I was running out of gas (see several previous blog posts!). Low and behold the fuel pump is only making 25psi instead of 55. What could cause that? Was the pump somehow damaged during the electrical failure? In desperation, I order another pump.
Meantime, the battery did not charge at all. I jump to conclusions left and right. Got plenty of exercise jumping to conclusions on this one! Since the alternator is controlled by the ECU, I decide to check that it's getting the right commands. Seems to be. I guess the battery repair didn't work after all! I panic. Now it's in bolted in with red Loctite! I'll have to cut it out! Plus, change the fuel pump! I'll miss the summer!
The fuel pump arrives so I open the fuel cell to do the swap. Curiously, I am actually out of gas! That would cause low pressure. I add some gas and oil and, sure enough, normal pressure. Phew. One down.
Later, I start thinking, maybe I've bamboozled myself in this long troubleshooting. Maybe a dead battery is a sign of a bad alternator? Maybe that was the original dead battery, although I got home fine and always check the voltage before keying off and I don't remember a low reading.
Not having time to get it tested, I order a new one. Install the new one, and we're good to go. Voltage regulates, battery stays charged. Still not sure what went wrong originally but I'm sure it will rear it's ugly head again and I'll get to know another tow truck driver! Have to go pick a track day now!
Keep on having #funwithcars !
As a kid that only exists in this country after my father - a lifelong Lucas employee (save for maybe 4 or 5 years elsewhere) - decided to move us here in 1978, I can give a bit of color to the Lucas Electrics issues.
ReplyDelete1) MG were not allowed to ship cars on boats over the ocean with fuel in their tanks. How do you think that the cars were offloaded? Drop it into 1st gear and drive it off on the starter motor, obviously. "Infant mortality" starter motors. Fried wiring. Bad batteries? Who would have thought????
2) I'm not sure that this issue applies to BB as she's a 66 or 67 (I think the same as you, Jeff, so a 66), but at some point in time the Fed Regs meant that the minimum swept windshield area was no longer served by only 2 wipers. So MG fitted 3. As the old Lucas wiper system was basically a rack and pinion guided by a few Bundys, it was easy to change the wiper spacing and simply fit a 3rd wiper... all without changing the wiper motor spec. for a 50% increase in average load.
If anyone on this blog has been to England then they will know that rain, whilst frequent, isn't nearly as abundant as in the US. England has rain like a sprinkler. The US has rain, as my grandfather put it, like a firehose.
50% more load, much heavier duty cycle... MTBF = yesterday. Plus the knock on effects of a taxed wiring system that was designed to not quite Colin Chapman levels of minimum.
What could go wrong?
I'm not defending Lucas; if their customer was doing this stuff and they didn't know, then it is clear that improvements could be made on both sides. I also know Jeff well enough and know he's not maligning them, either.
Just saying... these are tidbits you get IYKYK.
BTW, my Dad moved us over here as he was Assistant Chief Engineer on the ill fated Oldsmobile Diesel program. Lots of stories I could convey there, too, but this isn't my blog.
Oh, I forgot the most important bit.
ReplyDeleteKeep on having #funwithcars !
Thank you, man! You have the inside story and I've created far more gremlins than your Dad or mine ever did! Love you!
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