[Mgs] Electrical Nightmare

[Michael MacLean]

 Yes, I am sure it is a ground problem.  You are correct when you say the old connections probably are corroded to the point of very little electrical connectivity.  They should be cleaned and re-connected.  For now I just need the tach to work.  I am in the middle of an Austin Healey BN2 restoration and do not have unlimited time to play around with the MG yet.  A little at a time.  Today I am pulling the tachometer and the speedometer out to send out to be rebuilt.  While they are out, I will have access to more of the wiring behind the dash.  It will be a chance to clean up some connections before they come back.  Today I will disconnect the grounding wire eyelet I found behind the tach that I slipped over the threaded post for the experiment.  We'll see if the horn comes back.  After that, we'll see why the cigar lighter does not work.   I need a power point to charge my phone.Mike M

    On Thursday, January 16, 2020, 11:43:18 AM PST, Max Heim via Mgs <mgs at autox.team.net> wrote:  
 
 I agree. That is something I did, too. Just thoroughly cleaning the contacts makes a huge difference. And you will probably find that a lot of those old connectors will be cracked and aren’t really gripping.
--Max Heim'66 MGB

On Jan 16, 2020, at 11:40 AM, Hans Duinhoven <h.duinhoven at planet.nl> wrote:
Looking to your picture, I think it is better to do a thorough wiring job. It looks, like the car has been exposed to “nature” for many times. This means, a lot of contacts are suspect of being poor or bad. So besides true fault finding, I’d dismantle all wiring and get all contacts cleaned.Clean all bullet connectors and replace all their interconnects.Clean all other connectors and replace these when they are bad.I did this with my BGT in 1996 and after that job I never had any electrical failures, besides a faulty alternator (diode pack) and starter solenoid, where the nut did not keep the 12 V wires fixed anymore.   So get a matching electrical diagram of the car’s built year.The Haynes MGB manual always helped me out.  Hope this helps for the long term.  Cheers,Hans’71 BGT  Van: Mgs [mailto:mgs-bounces at autox.team.net] Namens Max Heim via Mgs
Verzonden: donderdag 16 januari 2020 20:20
Aan: Michael MacLean
CC: MGs
Onderwerp: Re: [Mgs] Electrical Nightmare  I think you still have a ground problem. Should the steering column have a separate ground wire on a 69? I know there is one in the turn signal harness.  It does help to consult the wiring diagram, to figure out where the common grounds are.    --Max Heim'66 MGB  
On Jan 16, 2020, at 11:06 AM, Michael MacLean via Mgs <mgs at autox.team.net> wrote:  In an earlier post I told how my tach in my 69 GT would die when the headlights were turned on.  Someone mentioned that the tach was looking for a ground through the light wiring for the instrument.  That turned out to be true, somewhat.  To test this I pulled the instrument to inspect the wiring and found what you see in the picture.  One arrow points to the ground connection on the back of the case and the other arrow points to a common ground just floating around behind the instrument.  For an experiment I slipped the ground wire connector over the threaded mouting stud of the case back and shoved the tach back into place temporarily to find out about the missing ground theory.  It worked!  You didn't think it was going to be that easy did you?  The light had not illuminated the instrument before either, so after scraping and sanding the bulb hlder and the tube fitting on the back of the tach that the bulb shoves into, the light worked too, but wait there's more!  After this hollow victory I had to use the horn on the test drive.  Now the horn does not work, but when I push on the steering wheel stalk to activate the horn, the brake warning light comes on.  I just love electrical problems.  Not in my element here.  Any ideas?Mike MacLean_______________________________________________

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