Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Bugly]

Hi all - just resurrecting this old post, as it seems to fill the purpose well.

In September this year I bought a 1935 Series 1 Morris 8 that had been restored some years ago, and was in quite remarkable condition. I must admit that I bought this vehicle from Perth in Western Australia sight-unseen, and based solely on photographs and discussions with the seller. Following the purchase, the Morris was then transported by truck 4,000km to Darwin in the Northern Territory.

On first turning the ignition on, I noticed that the ignition light didn't work, and on running the vehicle, the staged battery charging didn't seem to be working. With the headlights on the ammeter was showing a full scale (20A) discharge. Not good. This is what I have found so far ...

1. The cutout is a Lucas CFR2, and the contacts don't seem to be fully closing at fast idle ... just sitting there buzzing and arcing at the contact point.
2. The dynamo is a three-brush Lucas C35A unit. It was wired with a single wire from the cutout 'D' terminal to the dynamo 'POS' terminal, then strapped to the dynamo 'F2' terminal (???).
3. There were no wires on the cutout terminals 'F1' or 'F2'.

According to the wiring diagrams, the cutout teminals 'D', 'F1' and 'F2' are all to do with the battery charging. Little wonder it doesn't work with these bits missing. I opened up the dynamo, and checked it out electrically ... it all appeared to show the right readings. The insulator on the third brush spring tensioning arm fell to bits, so I fixed that with a bit of cunning and wizardry. Its now lubed and back in the engine bay.

I have wired the dynamo to the cutout with two wires, the 'D' and 'F2' connections. A good hunt around the wiring loom under the cutout doesn't show any folded back or unused wires, although the wiring loom looks like it was replaced with the last restoration. It included the wiring and fitting of twin-filament headlights with a "New Era" headlight relay, which is part of the new wiring harness. Maybe the 'F1' and 'F2' wires to the dashboard have been missing since then? The previous owner did mention that he used to keep the battery on the battery charger when he wasn't using the vehicle ... now I understand why!

With a C35A dynamo and a CFR2 cutout, I can't understand why the wiring was not completed during the restoration. Surely the lack of charging would have been noticed!??! Or maybe the Morris was only used for occasional daytime running, and it wasn't worth fixing it up?

But the point of this post ... thanks for the 2008 info! It will help me heaps!! Cheers - Bugly