Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[alanb]

I thought I would share this unusual problem in the hope it may help others.
I took my two seater Morris 8 to a local car show on Saturday, when it was time to leave the car wouldn’t start, after much checking and testing by myself and half a dozen others it eventually started after a lot of pushing. We eventually got home with a fair amount of misfiring. Sunday it would not start, so spent the rest of the day trying too discover the cause of the problem, spark then no spark, spark at the king lead but not at the plugs, new points new condenser, now no spark from the coil, new coil ordered on Monday,
The new coil arrived and was fitted, no different so back to square one, rechecked everything, then I noticed a spark from the distributor cap clip when it touched a cylinder head nut, checked body of distributor to earth nothing, removed and examined distributor, for some reason the alloy body wasn’t making good contact with the steel shaft. So I have drilled and tapped a 4mm hole through the alloy body and shaft and fitted a grub screw, continuity between shaft and body restored, all put back together and started first time. No need for new points, condenser or coil just needed an earth to the distributor.
Alan
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old tourer


Morris 8 two seater

[Peter_L]

Hi Alan. Is the grounding wire between contacts base plate and dist' body in good order ?

Nothing wrong with grounding the alloy housing, but the connectors on that little multi-strand cable can corrode over time.

[alanb]

Hi Peter,
My distributor is a Lucas DKYH4a with a metal base plate that is fitted directly to the body with 2 screws, no earthing strap. When checking the points for the 99th time I noticed when the distributor cap retaining clip touched the engine block I had a small spark, I then checked continuity between the alloy housing and the block, no reading on the meter open circuit, I then removed the distributor and the base plate, there was no sign of movement between the alloy body and the steel shaft, my conclusion was there must be some corrosion between the shaft and body, but as I was unable to separate the shaft from the body my solution was to drill and tap through the body into the shaft and fit a 4mm screw restoring continuity between them, I suppose I could have just fitted a wire under the screw holding the identity plate and the distributor clamp, but that would have looked untidy.
Alan
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old tourer


Morris 8 two seater