[Mgs] MG died this evening

[Paul Hunt]

There are no fuses involved in either starting or running and MGB engine - at
least with factory wiring.  From 1973 power to the coil is a daisy-chain from
the ignition switch to the white side of the fusebox and from there to the
coil so a bad connection could cause this problem, but for a 1971 the power to
the coil goes from the ignition switch via the tach pickup, nowhere near the
fusebox.

If you lost the engine *and* the dash gauges, then that says to me that the
problem is very close to the ignition switch, the switch itself, or the brown
feed to it.  The bottom fuse is fed from the brown circuit so if that had
power that part of the brown circuit at least is OK i.e. it isn't battery
connections.  However a North American 1971 has two brown wires coming off the
solenoid, one feeds the fusebox and starter relay, and the other the ignition
switch, lighting switch and hazards fuse, so if one of these brown wires has
fallen off the solenoid or is making a bad connection it would cause this
problem.

Incidentally if you had bridged the bottom two fuses in the fusebox with the
ignition switch on you almost certainly would have been able to start the
engine and drive the car home with everything working as it should, removing
the link to stop the engine.

PaulH.

  ----- Original Message -----
  ... I had power to the bottom fuse, no power to any of the
  other fuses, checked the coil no power there either ...