[Healeys] Intermittent OD:the answer

Richard Antal rantal243 at yahoo.com
Tue Sep 21 08:56:28 MDT 2010


Greetings,
     A few weeks ago I described a problem with the OD; for years it would 
intermittently fail to engage when the dash switch was flipped. I thought I had 
solved that problem by correcting a faulty wire connection at the solenoid. I 
enjoyed a couple thousand miles of flawless OD function and suddenly the failure 
to engage reappeared and rapidly worsened over the course of a 50 mile drive, 
such that at the conclusion of the drive, the OD would never engage. A test 
light attached to the solenoid demonstrated that it was getting power every time 
I flipped the dash switch. Visual inspection while the car was at rest showed 
that the solenoid was lifting the plunger when power was applied. I replaced the 
solenoid and the problem has resolved. Does this mean that the solenoid can 
weaken with old age (like the rest of me) and loose it's ability to fully lift 
the plunger even though it can lift it part way? I can think of no other answer. 
And thanks to all who proffered advice..
rich antal
And with regards to the recent discussion of the Munched Overdrive: my OD will 
disengage if I flip the dash switch up, but only if I also depress the 
accelerator slightly. This, as I understand it, is correct operation. However, 
if the OD is engaged and one comes to a stop and then shifts to reverse, the OD 
is still engaged because the accelerator has not been depressed. If then one 
slowly begins to reverse without depressing the accelerator sufficiently, the OD 
would be damaged. That seems to me to be a design flaw.


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