Trevor..
Sounds like a similar problem that I encountered during my maiden
voyage driving my 72 GT home from the Bay Area to Vancouver, WA.
The car drove wonderfully untill about half way when I pulled into
a gas station. Shut it off, filled it up, and then tried to start
it up. Click. That was it. No Go. Got a push start and drove it
to the restaurant where I was supposed to meet my wifes parents.
Fortunately they were following me in their car. After eating, I
went back out, and it started right up! So we continue on to the
next rest stop, and the car dies there. (What's going on I wonder!)
I get a jump start from my folks, and off we go. About ten minutes
down the road, it dies completely. Stops running Big Time. I
scratch my head and think for a while. This time we jump start it,
but leave the cables connected for a while to charge up what I think
is a completely dead battery.
Sure enough, runs all the way to the next rest stop. Doesn't die,
but we jump it and charge some more. We continued to stop at all
the rest stops and charge away. (I seem to remember seeing a
rest stop worker dude who ended up pulling into all the rest stops
we were at and laughing!)
So, it turns out that my alternator was shot - Completely Dead. I
was running off of battery juice the whole way. It takes
quite a bit more current to start the car than it does just to run
the car.
I don't know about the midgets, but the B's have a red light on
the dash which is supposed to come on for a short time right after
you start the car untill the alternator starts generating current.
Does your light come on and then go off? Do you remember what
it did before the car died?
Good Luck!
Dave Hall
Trevor Boicey wrote:
> I feel like I've been devirginified or something, because I
> just ran headlong into my first major stranded-by-Lucas failure in
> my Midget 1500.
>
-- SNIP --
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Trevor Boicey 1992 Celica GT (95% of the driving I do)
> Computer Engineer 1975 MG Midget (95% of the repairs I do)
>
dhall@vcd.hp.com
dlhall@pacifier.com
http://www.pacifier.com/~dlhall
72 MGB/GT
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