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Re: Midget Dash Fire - Help!!!

To: mgs@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Midget Dash Fire - Help!!!
From: thorpe@kegs.saic.com (Denise Thorpe)
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 95 11:09:24 PDT
I had a similar experience in my '67 MGB which may or may not relate to your
poor Midget.

I was giving a friend a ride home from a party at 2am in the poring rain and
my car just stopped dead.  The wiring harness was fried, but I managed to
string enough speaker wire around the engine compartment to make the car limp
home on three cylinders.

It turned out that the points in the voltage regulator had stuck shut sending
excess current through the entire electrical system.  Everything that was on
or running when this happened was destroyed.  The points were blown wide open,
spark plug and wire #3 were totally dead, the fuse to the radio was melted and
the windshield wiper switch was blown apart.

A new harness was $140 from Moss Motors.  This was in 1980 when I was still a
mechanic at a Jaguar-Rover-Triumph dealership and a wiring harness for a '79
B was $1400 from the dealership.  The up side is that the harness came with the 
wires for overdrive, so I'm set if I ever get around to installing an OD 
tranny.  
Of course, the voltage regulator and generator had to be replaced along with 
everything that had fried.  Altogether, it probably cost me $300 to make it 
drivable again.

Good luck with your Midget!

Denise Thorpe
thorpe@kegs.saic.com

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