Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Morgan Three Wheeler & Super 3 Stubborn start M3W

Have you checked the fuel pump pressure at the Schrader valve on the top of the engine it should be 58psi.

When I bought my M3W I had the timing pulley upgrade fitted before collecting it. I then had similar problems with starting, sometimes first crank but mostly not at all, the latter particularly when warm. I did however notice that the RH exhaust popped more than the left. The garage collected the car, checked it over and said that it was down to a poorly fitted woodruff key! Sorry I can’t be more specific but I’d only had the car one day when it happened and so I didn’t do my own investigation. At the time it seemed to me that starting depended on which cylinder was on first compression?

I wonder if the cam timing is out, probably worth taking the cam cover off and checking.

I got too enthusiastic with the hose washing the car. It would almost start seeming to fire but not catching. I called AA & the mechanic eventually found it was water that had got into the injector electrical connectors. Dried out it started fine. Your difficulty may be the injector connections, worth taking off, checking clean, wiring sound & firmly plugged in. I now keep the hose away from the top of the engine, rain is not a problem.

IMHO, your comment on starting being dependant on which cylinder was on compression took me back to a time when the norm for old single cylinder high compression m/cycles was to put the machine in gear and pull it backwards thus rotating the engine in reverse, until it was stopped rotating by arriving at compression... thus requiring less effort from the rider to get it to fire up when performing a race start of pushing the machine in gear, with the clutch held in getting it up to a reasonable speed then jumping on before dropping the clutch at which time the engine would turn relativly freely and draw in a fresh charge of fuel before arriving on compression and hopefully firing up..!

Long story short, I wondered if there might be any advantage to performing a similar operation, to give the battery the best opportunity to perform all the other tasks required of it before arriving at the demands of overcoming the compression stroke, a time at which it seems likely to cause a degree of voltage drop in terms of the requirements of all other circuits so needed to complete the start up sequence..?

As a yoof on a budget I have many memories of squeezing the very last volt and amp available out of batteries on bikes and cars, by JUMP starting, when the term was related to pushing the old thing as fast as you could then jumping either on or in and hoping for the best..... Prior to that, for cars there was the starting handle...(-:

Sorry just thinking in type...Again.

Ah Luddite, the joys of yoofdom.
One of my first cars was a Wolesley 1885, it had some missing teeth on the starter ring so after picking up my date for the evening and sitting her in sumptuous leather, I would put the steering wheel on full lock, disappear to the front of the car and use a screwdriver to inch the starter ring around so the bendix didn’t hit the gap. Always started first time after that small adjustment!

Check the cam timing as if the belt is 1 tooth out it can run but be a pig to start.

Well I'm stumped. I thought I spotted a trend, thought it maybe started when the weather was cooler in the morning. Yesterday I cranked it up at 6am and 65 degrees F. Started right up. Two hours later and 67 degrees, started right up. Took a nice drive. This morning in the cool dawn it won't light at all. Timing is fine. Fuel pressure fine. Morgan factory says take it to your local S&S dealer. That's seventy miles away and get this: the dealer said he was anxious to meet me, said he's never seen one of those X-Wedge engines before. Swell.

Another thought for you if you have closer access to an auto electrician.

I had idle issues, very rich mix at low revs else worked well at higher revs.

After a lot of changing, measuring Etc I took car to auto electrician who hooked up an oscilloscope to ecu

Problem was the ecu delivering two shots of petrol Per cycle but only at low revs.

ECU swapped out and hey presto all was good with the world. There have been a number of ecu failures reported on TM

Protune didn’t show issues or faults. Problem was intermittent.

The oscilloscope analysis of the system was the key, showed the double pulse to the injectors which otherwise would not have been found

Good luck

I had a slightly hard time starting this morning, took three tries. It fired up and ran beautifully until I was 40 miles away stopping for a photo op and it would not start. Gave the clicking sound of dead battery. Took delivery on 7 July last year so Banner has struck again.

The fellow next to me had a portable energy pack and jumped me for a very quick start. Once running I switched from Trip Mileage to Voltage and it was 12.3 while running so I drove it 40 miles back home and by the time I was home the voltage was 14.4. C

Checked all connections and all were tight so I put a charger on it for a couple of hours. It started right up with 14.2 running down the road but after to miles it was down to 12.1. Battery to holding a charge.

New battery ordered.