[Mgs] Oops...there it goes

[Max Heim]

Turns out the wiper was only part one of a triple whammy.

When I got home I was puzzled by an odd smell -- not exactly hot oil or
burning insulation, but with hints of both.

Opening the hood (or bonnet, if you prefer), I found that the oil cooler had
sprung a leak. At any rate, there was a puddle around the base, and a
semi-circular pattern of sprayed oil on the lower part of the radiator. But
I didn't have time to deal with it at that moment.

On Saturday, I thought I would try to address it. In order to see where the
oil was coming from (the cooler core, the stem or fitting, or the hose), I
thought I would start up the car. But turning the key had no effect (beyond
a few ticks of the fuel pump).

This escalating pattern of one problem leading to another was starting to
look too familiar, but I was determined, so I hooked up the battery charger
and set it to Engine Start. Still nothing.

Beginning to suspect that something had come adrift in the starter area, I
stuck my head underneath, and now I discovered the source of the electrical
component of the nasty aroma (the oily component already having become
apparent). Where the connector end of the starter solenoid should have been
was only a charred and cracked fragment of ceramic, surrounded by dangling
bare wires and congealed drips of insulation. [I should explain that this is
a late model starter, fitted to my 4-synchro OD tranny).

Something must have shorted out while I was last driving, because it was
cold, and it had started up fine when I had left the gas station in
Berkeley.

I won't go into the hassles I had trying to remove the oil cooler, other to
mention that I had only days earlier acquired a freebie used-but-clean
example, that seemed to hold pressure when rigged to the shop vac, and that
I subsequently installed.

I also spent some time splicing the already multiply-spliced wiring, and
attaching new terminals, in preparation for the arrival of a new starter.

One good thing about this exercise was that it took place in my driveway. It
wasn't really the sort of situation that could be resolved by the wayside.

--

Max Heim
'66 MGB GHN3L76149
If you're near Mountain View, CA,
it's the primer red one with chrome wires


on 4/3/10 12:35 PM, The Roxter at rocknatural at gmail.com wrote:

> Max Heim wrote:
>> Yeah, right <g>. Elevated freeway in downtown Oakland, 3 lanes, no
>> shoulders, 24 hour traffic.
>> 
>> This was morning rush, so it was probably a twisted flattened ruin within 30
>> seconds of ejecting, anyway. Unless it wound up stuck though someone's grill
>> like an arrow...
> Ick! I remember driving there once. Chances are it left the roadway. Look for
> newspaper articles about pedestrians skewered by wiper blades below the
> freeway.
> 
> -Rocky Frisco
> --