Inca Yellow

getting a 1979 MB GT back on the road

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MOT Day

March 25, 2009

Today the MG passed its MOT - it's first for about 20 years! The morning was not without incident however.

During our morning shakedown to get it prepped for the test an old issue reappeared. On turning the key to the ignition, the starter kicked in and kept going. This has happened once before and we couldn't work out why - in the end it fixed itself, but we knew it'd return, though we'd hoped not on the morning of its first test! When it happens the only thing to stop it is to pull the lead off the battery, otherwise the starter just keeps on turning.

It seems to be a fault in the key cylinder as with the battery off, a few turns of the key in the cylinder seemed to have fixed it for now. This'll be something we tackle shortly.

As to the test, the only advisory we got was to keep an eye on the rear brake lines (the only ones we haven't yet replaced) which is something we were looking at doing anyway as we already have the piping.

Now to get it taxed and give it a few short runs to unearth any minor niggles!

Tags: see more posts related to engine bay

Comments

  1. Adam

    2009-04-05 12:36:10

    Update: A nice chap called Chris Wilkinson emailed me to say that the starter issue is actually down to a diode in the handbrake warning light circuit. Rather than pulling the battery connections, the quickest way to stop the engine is to just drop the handbrake which works a treat.

    More information can be found here: http://www.mgb-stuff.org.uk/electricstext2.htm#diode (scroll right to the bottom) and I'll do a post about it when I fix it.

    Thanks Chris!

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About Inca Yellow

A while back I inherited a 1979 MGB GT. It had been sat in a garage for nearly two decades and was in desperate need of a bit of attention. Knowing absolutely nothing about cars and even less about engines I, of course, decided to get it back on the road.

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